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PRINCETON    .    NEW  JERSEY 

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PRESENTED  BY 


Robert  P.    Brodsky 

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BV  4501  .T2  1894 
Talmage,  T.  De  Witt  1832- 

1902. 
The  pathway  of  life 


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COPYRIGHT,   1884,  H.  8.  SMITH. 


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FEB   21   1964 


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atbWay  of  Life, 


.    Intended  to  Lead  the  Young  and  the 


Old  into  Paths  of  Happiness,  and  to 
Prepare  them  for  a  Holy  Compan- 
ionship with  Him  whose  Kingdom  is 
as  Boundless  as  His  Love. 


BY. 


Rev.  T.  DeWITT  TALMAGE,  D.  D. 


MAGNIFICENTLY   ILLUSTRATED   WITH    NEARLY   THREE    HUNDRED    ENGRAV- 
INGS  FROM   THE    MASTERPIECES   OF   THE   WORLD. 


PUBLISHED  AND  MANUFACTURED  BY 
HISTORICAL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY,  PHILADELPHIA,  PA., 

FOR 

THL  CHRISTIAN  HERALD, 

BIBLE   HOUSE,    NEW  YORK. 

1894. 


Copyright,  1888,  by  H.  S.  Smith. 

(all  rights  reserved.) 
Copyright,  1894,  by  Louis  Klopsch. 


*^*  Tlie  illustrations  in  this  work  being  from  original  drawings  and  protected  by 
copyright,  their  reproduction  in  any  form  is  unlawful,  and  notice  is  hereby  given  that 
persons  guilty  of  infringing  the  copyright  thereof  will  be  prosecuted. 


HbpFEh# 


EASTER  MORNING. 


PAGE 


The  Angels  of  the  Grass— John  Bunyan,  the  dreamer— Sermon  of  the  lil) — The  lily 
family — A  banquet  on  nightingale's  tongues — Evangels  of  the  sky — Flowers  for 
the  bridal  day — Dear  memories — Flowers  for  the  dead — Old  Mortality  among  the 
gravestones — The  floral  gospel — The  sepulchre  in  the  garden — Religious  symbol- 
ism— Death  of  the  flowers — Christ  the  rose  and  the  lily — Emblems  of  the  resurrec- 
tion— Bursting  the  sepulchre  door — Resurrection  morn — The  last  sleep — The  dead 
aroused — The  procession  of  immortals, 49-58 

BLESSINGS  IN  ADVERSITY. 

Harvest  Time  in  Bethlehem — The  gleaners — Effects  of  trouble — The  sweetness  of 
sorrow — Adversity  the  great  educator — Beside  the  death-bed — A  winged  horse — 
Tried  by  the  fires  of  persecution — Our  national  distresses — The  royalty  of  friend- 
ship— ^Job's  troubles — Destruction  of  reputations — F'aithfulness  of  the  jMar}'s  and 
of  Ruth — Darkness  and  dawn — The  harvest  field  of  God's  mercy — Drinking  the 
gall — The  scoff^ers  at  Noah — Persecutors  of  Christ — Little  incidents  that  change 
lives — Martin  Luther— Female  industry — Greatness  from  small  beginnings,      .    .    .       59-70 

THE  VALUE  OF  BEREAVEMENTS. 

The  Scourging  of  Jesus— Vinegar  for  the  djnng  Christ— Bitter  sweet — The  worm  in 
Solomon's  staff" — What  is  fame?— The  great  sympathizer — The  sourness  of  pain — 
To  whom  shall  be  given  the  brightest  crowns  ? — The  cup  of  bitterness — The  vanity 
of  wealth  and  of  genius — Goldsmith's  poverty — The  poverty  of  Jesus — The  crape 

(xix) 


XX 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 


on  the  floor — The  trinkets  that  will  be  used  no  more — Christ  in  grief — Wailing  for 
Lazarus— The  hour  of  death — The  season  of  everlasting  love — Taking  the  sorrows 
of  the  world — Herschel,  the  astronomer — Nana  Sahib  and  his  precious  ruby,  .    .    .       71-S0 

CHRIST'S   KINGDOM   ON   EARTH. 

Christians  Devoured  by  Lions — Division  of  the  earth — Evangelization  of  the  world — 
Greenland  once  a  blooming  garden — All  flowers  descended  from  the  Arctic  region 
— Deserts  to  be  reclaimed — A  new  apportionment — What  of  certain  buildings  ? — 
Imported  abominations — Livingstone  in  Africa — The  richness  of  China — Christian 
farmers — ^Julius  Caesar  and  King  Juba — The  division  of  heaven — Apostolic  resi- 
dences in  the  skies — Meetings  in  heaven — Dividing  the  spoils — As  ye  sow,  so  shall 
ye  reap — Squeezing  into  heaven — Crowns  for  the  patient  invalid — The  twelve  gates 
— The  last  day — Queen  Victoria  distributing  the  Crimean  prizes — The  final  reward 
— Medals  for  bravery — A  magnificent  pageant  of  Roman  victors — Procession  of  the 
redeemed 8i-93 

SWEET  CONTENT. 

The  Hegira  of  the  Rich — Our  fashionable  summer  resorts — The  luxury  of  health — 
Napoleon  and  his  gout — Original  and  the  copy— God's  glory  in  the  skies  and 
pictures  on  canvas — Cheerful  in  poverty — .-^.n  old  apple  woman—  Disappointments 
in  Wall  street — Nero  growling  on  his  throne — A  song  from  the  wreck — Where 
ambition  sleeps — Weeds  cover  the  gravestone— Egyptian  guano — Departed  great- 
ness— Caesar,  Lycurgus,  Xerxes,  Nebuchadnezzar,  Cleopatra,  Cromwell,  the  czars 
and  kings  of  history — The  robe  of  a  Saviour's  love — The  rest  that  shall  be  ours — I 
am  the  resurrection,      94-101 

TO  YOUNG  WOMEN. 

The  True  Position  of  Woman — ;Man's  better  part — Drones  that  afflict  society — Un- 
happy marriages — The  dove  that  married  a  vulture — The  hand  of  the  inebriate — 
Sacrifices  to  rum  and  war — Why  so  many  unmarried  women — Masculine  compan- 
ionship not  necessary  to  happiness — The  science  of  self-support — False  dependence 
— Appropriate  occupations — Female  employments — How  to  reach  the  top — Ro- 
mantic ideas  —  Apprenticeships  necessary  —  Two  sad  sights  —  Broken  vessels — 
Woman's  wages  to  increase — Justice  to  women — Women  who  have  won  their  way 
— Daughters  of  the  regiment, 102-114 

TO  THE  WOMEN   OF  AMERICA. 

The  Drunken  Nabal— An  insult  to  David— .Vbigail,  tlio  l)cauliful— The  court.ship  of 
Nabal— A  June  morning  smiling  on  a  March  squall — An  every -day  tragedy — IMme. 
Roland,  of  history,  and  her  sad  death — Lengthening  the  average  of  human  life — 
Prayer  in  lordly  castles— Great  men  as  evangelists— Our  literary  companions— .\ 
picture  from  life— Rich  but  profligate — The  master  and  slave — A  broken  heart — A 
prisoner  in  a  gilded  castle — Woe,  woe — Two  ducal  palaces — Villains  to  be  expurga- 
ted and  fuinigate<l — An  unclean  foreign  dignitary — The  drunken  bridegroom— A 
royal  marriage — Cleopatra's  ruse  to  see  Cttsar — Behold  the  bridegroom 1 15-124 


CONTENTS.  xxi 

PAGE. 
WOUNDED   LOVE. 

General  Jephthah's  Vow — His  defeat  of  the  Ainmonites— Meeting  with  his  daughter 
— A  wave  of  sorrow  and  the  sting  of  regret — The  sacrifice  of  Jephthah's  daughter 
— Broken  promises — Victims  to  false  vows — The  sacredness  of  a  promise — The 
family  of  furies — Exceptional  cases — Marriage  of  Robert  Burns — The  recreant  cap- 
tain— Betrothal  a  solemn  act — Infamies  of  history — No  excuse  for  making  mistakes 
— Insincerity — Divorce  a  last  resort — Make  the  best  of  a  bad  bargain — Incompati- 
bility— The  patience  of  Job — What  a  wife  can  do — A  brave  engineer — Death  of 
Queen  Elizabeth, 125-136 

DOMINION   OF   FASHION. 

True  Accomplishments — Sin  of  rudeness— Ancient  Scythians — Value  of  a  crest — 
Vanity  in  dress— Poor  butterflies — Revelations  of  high  life — Physical  disease,  men- 
tal imbecility  and  spiritual  withering — Harvest  of  death — Tumbling  into  ruin — 
Shadows  of  gravestones  upon  finest  silk  — Tumult  of  the  last  day — Fashion  in 
church — Death  of  the  vain  man — A  wandering  star— Close  of  a  life  of  fashion — 
Death-beds  of  noted  Christian  women — Oueen  Elizabeth  and  King  Ferdinand,  .    .    137-141 

TO  THE  FEMALE  TEACHER. 

Among  the  Splendors  of  Ahasuerus'  Palace — The  gathered  magnificence  of  Persia 
— The  gleaming  glories  of  vShushan — The  revelry  of  inebriated  feasters — Queen 
Vashti  and  the  Princesses  of  Persia — Mandate  of  the  King — Vashti's  disobedience 
— Vashti,  the  sacrifice — The  glory  of  a  true  woman — The  great  female  heroes  of 
history — A  tribute  to  female  teachers  —  Father  is  dead — Thrown  on  her  own  resources 
— A  teacher's  life  — A  noble  old  school-marm — Anecdote  of  Scarron  -  Goethe  and 
Shakespeare's  ideas  of  women — Heroines  of  the  two  great  poets — Vashti,  the  veiled 
— Great  women  of  history— Women  clothed  in  a  hurricane  of  millinery — "Vashti 
has  lost  her  veil  " — The  injustice  of  our  laws — Discriminations  against  women — 
Can't  wait  for  female  suffrage — Vashti,  the  outcast — Martyrs  to  duty — Burning  of 
the  "  Prairie  Belle  " — The  scoffers  at  Galileo— Copernicus  reviled— Martyrdom  of 
the  reformers — The  frozen  crew  on  duty — An  incident  in  the  siege  of  Rome,  .    .    .    142-153 

AHAB  AND  JEZEBEL. 

Ahab  Covets  Naboth's  Vineyard — Wicked  Jezebel's  advice — Thestoningof  Naboth — 
Elijah's  prophecy — Horrible  fate  of  Ahab  and  his  queen — The  result  of  a  wnfe's 
bad  advice — The  dogs  devour  Jezebel — Wifely  ambition — Illustrious  examples  of 
wifely  devotion— Judas  slays  Holofernes— The  wife  of  Andrew  Jackson — The 
mother  of  Washington — Pliny's  guardian  spirit — Testimonies  to  wifely  virtues  — 
Thomas  Carlyle  and  his  neglected  wife — The  bulls  and  bears  of  Wall  street — Ameri- 
can politics — Ruined  by  his  wife's  social  amintion  —  Deborah's  .Shibboleth—  In  the 
teeth  of  public  opinion — Home  influence  on  husbaTids — Great  men  who  have  left 
no  descendants— The  siege  of  Troyes — P^Ixecution  of  Joan  d'Arc — Faithful  wives' 
reward — Consecrated  women, 154-162 


xxiv  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 
DRUNKENNESS. 

Saturday  Afternoon  Closing — How  the  poor  niau  may  become  a  capitalist — Expendi- 
tures for  rum — A  dreadful  showing — Effects  of  liquor  on  the  system — Abstainers 
healthier  than  drinkers — A  Russian  inspection — Saturday  afternoons  free  but  sober,  265-266 

GENERAL  JOSHUA. 

The  Siege  of  Ai — ^Joshiia's  strategy — Capture  of  the  city — About  face  and  charge — 
Cheer  for  the  triumphs  of  Israel — Victorious  retreat — What  are  you  reading? — St. 
Bartholomew  massacre — Execution  of  Lady  Jane  Grey — Persecution  of  the  Protest- 
ants— Jesus  of  the  ages — Santa  Anna's  retreat — The  powers  of  darkness — Triumph 
of  the  wicked — Destruction  of  the  wicked — Importance  of  taking  good  aim — ^Tlie 
bravery  that  confronts  steel  and  bullet — Parade  soldiers — Which  side  are  you  on  ?  267-276 

CONSTELLATIONS  OF  THE  REDEEMED. 

Every  Man  has  a  Thousand  Branches— The  force  of  evil  influence — How  a  commu- 
nity was  changed  by  good  example — The  swift  feet  of  prayer — An  incident  of  the 
Mexican  War — Prayer  swifter  than  electricity — George  Miiller's  efficacious  prayer 
— How  to  pray — The  resources  of  the  Lord — Capture  of  Gibraltar — Christian  bom- 
bardment— Luminosity  of  the  planets— A  tour  of  redemption — Like  the  stars — 
Graves  of  the  unknown — The  solar  system  likened  to  a  company  of  children — 
Galaxy  of  joy — Flight  of  worlds — Measuring  the  planets — A  glory  that  never  fades 
— Burial  of  the  stars — Cohorts  tumbling  out  of  heaven, 277-289 

HOW  TO   PROLONG  LIFE. 

Religion  Associated  with  Sick  Beds  and  Graveyards — The  saving  health  of  all 
nations — Remarkable  longevity — IMere  dwarfs — Distinguished  descendants  of  the 
African  race— Curiosities  of  the  body — Paul  in  need  of  an  overcoat — Physical  health 
— Body  and  soul  Siamese  twins — Dead  from  excitement — Upholstery  of  the  mid- 
night heavens — The  human  body  is  God's  watch — Dissipations  that  destroy  health 
— Religion  promotive  of  longevity— Byron  his  own  Mazeppa — Poe  putting  the 
raven  in  his  soul — Napoleon  killed  by  a  snuff  box— Worry  and  trouble — God  rich 
enough  to  provide,for  all  our  wants — A  beautiful  sickness — A  wound  that  was  the 
badge  of  honor — Frederick  Frelinghuy.sen — Comforting  assurances — A  series  of 
experiments— The  sacrifice  to  accept — All  things  shall  be  given  to  the  righteous,    .  290-301 

A  SHIPWRECK. 

A  Memorable  Storm  on  the  Mediterranean— .Shipwreck  of  Paul — Destruction  of 
the  vessel — Escape  of  the  crew — Thank  God,  all  are  here — The  great  gospel  ship^ 
Creeds  and  articles  of  faith— The  Andover  controversy — Take  to  the  plank — Not 
only  faith,  but  good  works  necessary  to  salvation — One  who  doesn't  believe  in  hell 
— Another  who  condemns  revivals — Settling  difficulties — Believe  in  something — 
Nelson's  blind  eye— Vicarious  suffering — Lost  at  sea  trying  to  save  others — Come 
in  on  the  Cross -Once  a  skeptic — Death-bed  scenes,      302-311 


CONTENTS.  XXV 

PAGE. 
CHRISTMAS. 

The  Ages  Cry  for  a  Christ — The  most  poetic  figure  of  the  centuries — The  coming  of 
Christ — Man's  cruelty  to  animals — Jesus  cradled  among  the  speechless  animals — 
A  plea  for  humane  treatment — The  birth  of  Christ — Honoring  childhood — Not 
only  a  child,  but  an  immortal — A  recess  in  heaven — How  a  child  decided  Waterloo 
— How  a  child  decided  Gettysburg — Science  honored — Great  men  who  are  Chris- 
tians— The  fields  honored — Distinguished  men  of  American  history — The  mother — 
Artists  whose  ideals  are  found  in  their  mothers — The  death  of  mother — We  are 
coming — Calm  land  beyond  the  sea, 312-323 

AMUSEMENTS. 
In  the  Temple  of  Dagon — Samson,  the  blind  giant — Pulling  down  the  temple  upon 
his  tormentors — Sinful  amusements — The  world  for  God's  own  children — Proper 
recreation — Cultivation  of  the  voice  and  of  music — Raising  up  the  depressed  soul — 
How  Waterloo  was  won — The  gymnasium  commended — Effects  of  food  upon  the 
body — Martin  Luther  mighty  in  mind  and  body — Parlor  games  commended — 
Bounding  health — Out -door  sports — The  pleasure  and  healthfulness  of  doing  good — 
Cheerful  looks  and  words — Moravian  missionaries — Result  of  sinful  amusement — A 
wasted  life — Prophesying  death 324-334 

CHILDREN. 
Judge  Eli  and  His  Two  Bad  Boys — Receipt  of  ill  news — Death  of  the  two  sons  and 
a  fatal  shock  to  Eli — An  all-conquering  army — An  incident  of  the  war  between 
Frederick  II.  and  Maria  Theresa — The  boy  of  to-day  to  be  ruler  of  the  future — 
A  shield  of  insufferable  splendor — Errors  in  the  training  of  children — John  Mil- 
ton's domestic  blunders — The  drudgery  enforced  on  his  daughters — A  cruel  father 
— John  O' Groat's  eccentricity — The  family  scapegoat — Dangers  of  over-indulgence 
— Necessity  of  studying  a  child's  disposition — Adapting  yourself  to  requirements — 
God's  hints  to  parents — Treasures  in  a  shattered  casket — Religious  restraint  essen- 
tial— Suppression  of  childish  sportfulness — Let  them  romp — Study  and  play — The 
beauty  of  early  piety — The  dying  mother's  request, 335-350 

JESUS. 
Are  the  Planets  Inhabited? — Proofs  that  they  are — A  glimpse  of  heaven — Gardens 
in  perpetual  bloom — What  is  death  ?— The  wealth  of  the  prince — Solomon's  riches 
— A  fallen  world — Christ's  arrival  on  earth — His  great  poverty — A  chilling  recep- 
tion— Pompey's  glory — Treading  the  wine-press  alone — Cleopatra's  banquet — The 
grace  of  God — Story  of  the  old  Scotchman — Anecdote  of  Artaxerxes — The  seven 
wise  men  of  Greece — An  apothegm  for  each, 351-360 

CONCORD  AND  DISCORD. 
Laying  of  the  Corner  Stone — vSymphonies  of  nature — A  musical  portfolio— The  harp- 
string  broken — Infirmities  of  society — A  shipwreck  of  harmonies— Symbolisms  of 
nations — Fond  of  contention — The  devil's  sonata — A  singular  dream — Anecdote  of 
Bach— Moral  discord— The  Dusseldorf  jubilee — The  cost  of  war— Overture  of  the 
morning  stars — Mozart's  greatest  composition — An  instrument  to  attune  the  world 
— The  anvil  chorus— Compass  of  the  human  voice — A  new  song — The  Great  Peace 
Jubilee  in  Boston — A  thrilling  incident— Parepa  Rosa's  Star-Spangled  Banner,  .    .  361-372 


xxvi  CONTENTS. 

FORBIDDEN   HONEY. 

Ingenuity  of  the  Honey  Bee— Celebration  of  the  bee  in  fable — Some  wonderful  facts 
— The  forbidden  honey — Jonathan's  disobedience — Pernicious  literature — Corrupt 
influence  of  bad  books — Filling  life  with  husks  and  cinders — Good  books — The  false 
honey  of  stimulants— Recipes  for  curing  the  drunken  habit— Ominous  names  of 
intoxicants — False  security — Infatuation  for  strong  drink — The  gamester's  indul- 
gence—Faro and  card  playing— Stock  gambling — Victims  of  Wall  street — Fatal 
Accident — Seek  only  the  honey  of  heaven — The  ambrosia  of  life — Funeral  of  a 
Norse  king — End  of  the  Poet  Shelley,       373-382 

THE  SECRET  OF  SUCCESS. 

Nothing  Can  Keep  a  Good  Man  Down— The  success  of  Joseph— Chrysostoni's  brave 
answer  to  Eudoxia — INIonuments  of  the  Christian  religion— An  unfair  comparison 
— Persecutions  bring  victories — The  fires  of  the  stake — Crime  will  out — The  sale  of 
Joseph — Saul's  cupidity  discovered — Easier  to  sin  than  to  escape  the  consequences — 
All  events  linked  together — A  small  incident  that  defeated  Napoleon's  Egyptian 
expedition — God's  plans  beyond  our  comprehension — Defeats  and  victories  are 
twin  brothers — Anecdote  of  Dr.  Kennedy — Every  famine  has  a  storehouse 383-391 

ROYAL  WOMANHOOD. 

The  Imperial  Character  of  a  Good  Woman — The  coronation  of  women— The  wid- 
ow's son — The  ministers  of  home — A  hard  death — The  blessed  home — Woman's 
heroism — Friends  of  the  poor — Dangerous  fruit — God  protects  the  charitable — 
Helen  Chalmers  among  the  poor — Soliciting  charities — Tell  your  troubles  to  your 
wife — A  friend  in  every  emergency — Woman's  opportunity — Rest  in  heaven- 
Winning  the  crown, 392-402 

EMPLOYMENTS  IN   HEAVEN. 

Ezekiel's  Vision  of  Heaven  -What  are  our  departed  friends  doing?— Effects  of  con- 
version— -How  to  determine  the  occupations  in  heaven — Surfeited  with  good 
things — Continuing  our  trades  and  professions — The  celestial  art  gallery — The  soul 
shall  sing— Musical  instruments  of  heaven — An  anecdote  of  Haydn — The  church 
militant — The  mathematics  of  heaven — Brave  spirits  who  sought  to  reach  the  North 
Pole — Astronomers  and  chemists  in  celestial  inquiry — Authors  in  heaven — A  won- 
derful place  to  visit— Meeting  with  noted  people — The  Scotch  Covenanters — A 
place  of  perpetual  love — The  tombstone  the  parting-post — The  cathedral  bell  of 
heaven — A  dream  of  heaven- Home  !  Home!  Home! 403-417 

DELUSIONS. 

Divination  to  Find  the  Will  of  God— Two  modes  practiced  in  Babylon — Oracles  and 
Sibyls — The  Delphic  oracle — An  imposter  in  New  York — Is  Christianity  a  delu- 
sion ? — Anecdote  of  Admiral  Farragut — Swaying  noble  intellects — Testimonies  of 
great  men — The  death-bed  filled  with  happy  anticipations — "  INIother,  catch  me,  I 
am  coming" — A  sustaining  belief — Last  words  of  dying  Chi-istians — A  glorious 
delusion — The  reclaimed  drunkard — Some  rich  fools, 418-424 


CONTENTS.  xxvii 

PAGE. 
BOOKS. 

Paul  in  Ephesus — A  big  bonfire  of  bad  books — A  great  agency  for  good  or  bad — The 
printing  press — Pernicious  literature  filling  our  jails  and  poor  houses — The  tree  of 
life  and  of  death — Books  that  are  good — Baleful  novels — The  truly  great  novelists 
— Moral  and  physical  effect — A  woman  who  devotes  her  time  to  novels — Great 
evils  from  small  causes — Torn  by  a  leopard — Corrupting  the  imagination — Aterri- 
ble  curse — The  clock  strikes  midnight — A  spectre  of  the  night — Make  a  bonfire  of 
bad  books, 425-431 

PILLARS  OF  SMOKE. 

The  Architecture  of  the  Smoke — Beautiful  comparisons — Martyrdoms  and  persecu- 
tions— Catholics  and  Protestants  alike  practice  inhumanities — Intolerance  of  both 
— Other  persecutions — Horrible  atrocities  in  the  name  of  religion — Groans  of  the 
martyrs — Has  persecution  ceased  ? — A  complaint  from  the  theatres — A  terrible  ven- 
geance— A  beautiful  symbol — The  gates  of  the  church — The  smoke  of  peace — L,in- 
coln's  wise  proposition — The  horrors  of  war — Down  with  Moloch — Burning  of 
the  world, 432-440 

HEROES  OF  THE  SEA. 

Behold  the  Ships — Our  war  vessels — Memorable  sea  fights — The  neglected  sailor — 
The  fight  of  Ivcpanto — Battle  of  Actium — And  of  Salamis — Wonderful  things  accom- 
plished during  our  late  war — Deeds  of  naval  heroes — The  ocean  cemetery — From 
picturesque  display  to  death — Sinking  of  the  Weehawken — Keep  your  flag  flying — 
Four  }^ears  of  martyrdom — A  review  of  three  great  conflicts — Epigrammatic  mes- 
sages— Death  of  Farragut — Conversion  of  Admiral  Foote, 441-449 

WARS  OF  THE  AGES. 

Military  Science  Set  Forth  in  the  Bible — Farly  weapons  of  warfare — Fighting  from 
the  backs  of  elephants — Armed  chariots — The  noise  of  advancing  hosts — Foreign 
nations  jealous  of  us— A  sacrifice  for  my  country — Contrast  1862  with  1888 — The 
"Star-Spangled  Banner "  and  "  Way  Down  South  in  Dixie" — War  contrasted 
with  peace — The  Statue  of  Liberty — The  rivalry  of  commerce — Off  for  the  war — 
Thrilling  scenes  and  heart-burnings — Thanksgiving  day  in  camp — News  from  the 
battle — Harrowing  sobs  and  agonies — Glorious  contrasts — The  dove  of  peace — Prog- 
ress in  North  and  South — Buried  heroes — The  number  that  have  fallen  in  battle,  450-459 

A  MIGHTY  HUNTER. 

Hunting  as  a  Sport — ^Formerly  it  was  to  destroy  dangerous  wild  beasts — Nimrod,  the 
mighty  hunter — An  affecting  story — Archers  of  olden  times — Battles  fought  with 
the  long  bow — Arrows  from  wood  of  the  cross — In  the  armory  of  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke— The  men  who  have  bravely  faced  danger — The  monster  of  intemperance — 
The  Church  of  God — The  Bengal  tiger  of  drunkenness — Great  tun  of  Heidelberg 
— A  deathbed  repentance — A  singular  vision — Visited  bj-  the  spirit  of  his  dead 
mother — An  inexpressibly  sad  scene — Five  acts  of  a  tragedy — A  grand  hunt  in  the 
India  jungles — Domitian's  skill  as  an  archer — The  sinner's  death-trap — Roland,  the 
trumpeter — A  marvelous  tomb, 460-467 


xJcviii  CONTKNTS. 

PAGE. 
FORGIVENESS. 

Pillow  of  the  Dying  Day — Glorious  sunset — Life's  exasperations — Misrepresentations 
and  persecutions — An  anecdote  of  Henderson — A  faith  cure — A  boy  whose  vitals 
were  eaten  by  a  fox — Viudictiveness  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  son — Murder  of  the  young 
princes — Shakespeare's  genius — Magnanimity  of  Aristippus — The  duty — Ruins  of 
Pompeii — .^  child's  trustful ness  in  its  father — \  provider  and  defender — Moham- 
med's idea  of  power — The  clock  of  earthly  existence — The  sunset  of  earth  is  the 
sunrise  of  heaven, 46S-478 

THE  BLACK  GIANT. 

Easter  Mornings  of  the  World — The  royal  court  of  the  Sabbaths — The  black  giant — 
Invading  every  domicile  with  the  pestilence  of  death — Christ  the  good  Physician 
— The  abolition  of  death — At  a  king's  banquet — Reconstruction  of  the  body — Cre- 
mation may  become  necessary — God  shall  raise  the  dead — Resurrection  of  seed 
life — Seeds  from  the  mummy  pits  of  Egypt — The  apparent  death  and  resurrection 
of  Rev.  Wm.  Tennent — Evidence  of  a  final  resurrection — The  Olympic  games- 
Meeting  of  body  and  soul — A  cruel  heathen — Emptied  graves, 479-488 

PALACES  OF  SPLENDOR. 

The  Church  of  Notre  Dame — Magnificent  relics  there  preserved — Jeweled  raiment 
of  kings  and  queens — The  odors  of  Christ's  garments — ICxquisite  comparisons — 
Ivorv  palaces — Solomon's  splendors — Healing  all  ills — Claiming  the  flowers  of  earth 
for  transplanting  in  the  eternal  garden — Open  your  gates  for  a  new  soul  to  come  in,  4S9-495 

SECRET  SOCIETIES. 

"Discover  Not  a  Secret  to  Another" — Why  Solomon  gave  this  injunction — People 
who  cau't  keep  their  mouths  closed — Gossip  in  Solomon's  household — Effects  of  a 
secret  divulged  and  of  a  secret  kept — Associations  for  goodly  purposes  commended — 
The  necessity  of  secrecy — Resistance  to  monopoly — Mary,  Queen  of  Scots — Good 
accomplished  by  secret  societies — Sacrificing  the  home — Ruined  by  social  excesses 
— The  two  roads — A  rope  that  reaches  to  heaven, 496-504 

A  STAIN  ON  THE  ESCUTCHEON. 

National  Parties — Need  of  an  Anti-.Murmon  ]X)licy — The  great  lazaretto  in  the  West 
— Recruited  from  foreign  shores — The  demand  of  the  age — Extirpation  by  the  sword 
recommended — Bigamy  on  a  colossal  scale — Inducing  a  laxity  in  the  marital  rela- 
tion— Divorce  made  easy — Protect  the  emigrants — Intermarriage  of  nationalities — 
The  Constitution  and  the  Bible  to  be  studied — A  recognition  of  God — Anarchy 
condemned — No  dependence  in  political  promises — I/oyalty  to  God — The  voice  of 
prayer — A  hand-clasp  round  the  world, 505-512 

RESPONSIBILITIES  OF   RULERS. 

Baseness  of  Henry  VIII. — ^The  sinners  uf  the  world  onlhroncd — Our  land  blessed  with 
good  men — David  reproved  by  Nathan — Incompetency  of  officials — Ignorance  ele- 
vated to  place — Drunkenness  in   the  halls  of  legislation — Slain  by  strong  drink — 


CONTENTS. 


XXIX 


PAGE. 
Examples  of  the  evils  that  have  come  upon  our  country  through  intoxication — 
A  cry  from  the  land — God's  indignation — Bribery  and  corruption — How  bills  are 
passed — Revolution   ahead — Your  duty  to    your  country — God    save   the  United 
States  ! 513-519 

GOD'S  CIRCLE. 

The  Universe  Made  on  the  Plan  of  a  Circle — Shapes  in  nature — Greatness  of  the  past 
— Noah's  ark — Centuries  behind  the  old  artists — Relics  from  an  exhumed  English 
city — The  world  swinging  in  a  circle — Ezekiel's  wheel — The  mutations  of  time — 
Building  of  the  pyramids — Effects  of  goodly  influence  never  destroyed — ^Thy  sins 
will  discover  you — Disrespect  to  parents — A  shocking  illustration — Influence  of 
Voltaire  and  Marat — A  glad  theory — Christ  the  centre  of  the  circle 520-529 

A  PURPOSELESS  LIFE. 

Idolatry  of  the  Ancients — He  feedeth  on  ashes — Lady  Jane  Grey  and  other  unfortu- 
nates— The  vanity  of  riches — The  voluptuaries  of  history — A  wasted  life — Infidelity 
— The  hunger  of  restlessness — What  is  wealth  ? — Help  conieth  not  from  this  world 
— Anecdote  of  a  rich  merchant— The  faithful  watch-dog — The  end  of  the  world — 
The  confiding  murderer, /53c>~536 

SMALL  THINGS. 

The  Eye  of  the  East — Paul's  persecution  of  the  Christians — His  conversion — Pursued 
by  the  mob — Refuge  on  the  housetop — The  escape — An  incident  in  John  Wesley's 
life — How  Pitcairn  Island  was  reclaimed — The  manger  in  Bethlehem — Miriam's 
rejoicing — In  a  storm  at  sea— Success  at  last — ^John  in  the  wilderness — Holding  the 
rope — A  nail  nearly  wrecks  a  Cunarder — The  Spanish  inquisition — Paul's  prayer — 
Amen, , 537-544 


PAGE. 

I  Will  Follow  Jesus, 35 

He  Will  Guide  You,  etc., 36 

Do  Not  Take  the  First  Step 36 

Pray  God  to  Keep,  etc., 37 

The  Heaveus  Declare,  etc., 40 

I  Pray  That  Thou  Keep, 43 

Come,  Ye  to  the  Waters, 43 

The  Light  of  the  World, 45 

Even  So  Must  the  Sun, 45 

Enter  Not  in  the  Path, 46 

Peace  I   Leave  With  You,       48 

The  First  Glad  Easter  Morn, 50 

An  Offering  of  Flowtrs, 53 

Thou  Wilt  Keep  Him,  etc., 54 

The  Rose  of  Sharon,  etc., 55 

Our  Father  Who  Art,  etc. 56 

Sad  Memories, 61 

These   Are  They  That  Make  Poor   Men 

Rich, 68 

Luther  at  the  Diet  of  Worms, 65 

The  Christian  Martyr, 66 

The  Breadwinner, 69 

Dead   For  Our  Transgressions, 72 

Free  From    Perplexing  Care, 73 

The  Angel's  Whisper, 76 

Perishableness, 79 

A  Student  of   Prophecy, 82 

America, 85 

A  Dirge  in  the  Desert, 86 

Landing  of  the  Romans, 87 

The  Kingdom  of  the   Blessed,      ....  88 


PAGE, 

The  Light  of  the  World, 90 

The  Temptation, 91 

Four  Famous  Medals, 91 

Sweet  Content, 95 

Napoleon's  Retreat  From  Russia,  ....  97 
Principal    Works    of     Sir     Christopher 

Wren, 99 

A  Vagabond  in  the  Street, 103 

A  Vagabond  in  the  Drawing  Room,  .    .    .  103 

Milton   Dictating  Paradise  Lost,       ...  105 

Gift  of  Bridegroom, 107 

Idleness, 109 

Woman,  Behold  Thy  Son,  etc. iii 

The  Sisters  of  Bethany, 112 

Single  and  Happy, 117 

Evening   Calm, 118 

Burns  and  His  Highland  Mar\', 119 

The  Sourness  of  Poverty, 123 

Jephtha's  Daughter  Bewailing  Her  Sac- 
rifice,    127 

Jane    Waring    Receiving  the   Notice   of 

Dean    Swift's   Perfidy, 129 

Sick  and  Neglected, 132 

Fashions  of  Head-dress, 139 

Examining  the  Teacher, 143 

The   Guardian    Angel, 147 

Victims  of  French  Revolution, 149 

Vashti,  the  Outcast 150 

Luther  and  His  Family  Singing  Psalms,  .  159 

Execution  of  Joan  of  Arc, 161 

Early  Troubles, 164 


(xxxi) 


xxxn 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE. 

Napoleon  Announcing  to  Josephine  Her 

Divorcement 165 

A  Broken  Heart  in  a  Palace, 167 

The  Old  Homestead, 169 

The  Empty  Place, 170 

A  Birthday  Surprise, 171 

The  Scribe's  Difficulty, 174 

Grandmother, 177 

Talking  Over  Old  Times 17S 

Visiting  the  Sick  and  Destitute 179 

The  Guiding  Angel, 1S2 

An  Errand  of  Mercy, 1S3 

How  Far  Yet? 184 

The   Celestial   Welcome, 185 

The  Lord  is  Good  to  All, 186 

Slumber  Song, 190 

Sung  to  Sleep, 191 

Just  Like  Him, 192 

A  Chubby  Pouter, 193 

Henry  V.  at  Agincourt, 195 

Destruction  of  Babes, 198 

A  Song  Without  Words 199 

A  Young  Man  of  the  World,  .....  202 
A   Cloud  on    His   Brow,  a  Curse  in  His 

Heart,      203 

Street  Urchins 205 

Before  Monterey, 207 

Telling  the  Secret,  etc 209 

The  Storm   Child  Screaming  Along   the 

Beach 211 

Aurora,       2r3 

Attila,   King  of  Huns, .  216 

Siege  of  Aquileia 217 

Roman  Charioteers, 219 

The  Goddess  of  Justice 220 

Cain  and  Abel  Rocked  in  the  Eirst  Cradle,  224 

The    Ivavcsdropper, 225 

The  Prodigal  Son, 226 

Death-bed  of  Copernicus, 227 

Jealous  Lovers— the    duel 230 

Hard  Times, 232 

The  Little  Orphan's  Dream 235 

Napoleon's  Retreat  from  Moscow,  ....  237 

The  Reaper  and  the  ElowerSj 239 

The  Crown  of  Thorns, 240 

The  Bride's  New  Home 241 

l<ast  Days  of  the  Condemmed, 245 


PAGE. 

The  First  Born, 247 

The  Deluge, 2^so 

Youths  to  Fortune,  but  to  Fame  Unknown,  24S 

Grief, 251 

An  Ecstatic  Der\'ish, 253 

Blind   Bartimeus .  256 

Fame, 257 

Bringing  Home  Lost  Sheep, 258 

Feeding  the  Multitude, 260 

Reciting  Incidents  of  his  Valor, 263 

Daniel  Refusing  the  King's  Wine,  .    .    .  266 

The  Scourging  of  Jesus, 269 

Queen   Elizabeth    receiving   the   French 

Ambassadors  after  the  Massacre  of  St. 

Bartholomew, 271 

In  the  Brave  Days  of  Old, 272 

Husbandly  Sympathy 274 

John  Knox  preaching  before  the  Court  of 

Mary   Stuart, 275 

A  Lesson  in  Arithmetic, 279 

The  Voice  of  Prayer, 28 1 

When  the  Grave  Household,   etc 282 

Jesus  and  the  Syrophoenician  Woman,  .  283 

Blessed  are  the  Pure  in  Heart 286 

Niobe, 287 

The  Proposal, 293 

The  Bloom  of  Health,    .........  295 

The   Healing  Hand 296 

Reverence, 297 

Peace  be  Still, 299 

The  Angel  of  the  Sepulchre, 301 

The  vSea  shall  giva  up  the  Dead, 305 

A  Young  Hero 306 

Rock  of  Ages 307 

Ranisgate  Pier-head 310 

An   Interesting   Story, 313 

The  Sistine  Madonna 314 

Jesus,  the  Carpenter's  Son 317 

A  Street  Scene  in  Pompeii, 319 

The  Young  Farmer 321 

Mother, 322 

Samson,  as  Servant  to  the  Philistines,  .    .  325 

The  Home  Choir, 327 

Meditative  Expectancy, 329 

The  Queen's  Shilling, 332 

The  First  Step 336 

Maria  Theresa  and  the  King, 337 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


xxxin 


PAGE. 

The  Queen  of  the  Barnyard, 338 

The  Chimney  Sweep, 339 

The  Pugilistic  Pupil 341 

Indulgence— the  Rival  Grandfathers,    .    .  343 

Our  Father  Which  Art  in  Heaven,      .    .    .  347 

Our  Father  Who  Art  in  Heaven,    ....  349 

The  Tower  of  Ivondon, 352 

Jesus  Preaching, 353 

The  Anchor  of  the  Soul, 355 

Maternal  Joy, 357 

Paul   Being  Taken  Away  from  Prison  to 

Rome,      ...                       359 

The  Morning  of  the  World,     .....  362 

Listening  for  his  Footsteps, 363 

The  Boat  Song, 365 

At  the  Cross, 368 

Workshop  of  a  Philosopher, 369 

A  Poem  of  Love, 371 

The  Novel  Reader, 375 

After  the  Feast, 377 

Boadicea,             380 

Elizabeth  Fry  Pleading  for  the  Pardon  of 

Converted  Criminals, 384 

Martyrdom  of  St.  Sebastian, 385 

Failure — Pleasure  Before  Business,     .    .    .  387 

Success — Business  Before  Pleasure,        .    .  389 

Execution  of  Lord  Hastings .  390 

Queen  of  Sympathy,  ....            ...  393 

Motherless, 395 

Confidence, ...  397 

Health's  Return,  .  .  .  .  "^  .  .  399 
Where   the  Woods  Lift  Their  Heads  in 

Praise, 401 

The  Flower  Gatherer,             464 

Those  Blissful  Hours,     .    .        405 

The  Holy  Sign, 407 

The  Harvest  of  the  Sea, 409 

The  Huguenot, 411 

The  Forgiver  of  Sins, 415 

A  Witch, 419 


PAGE. 

The  Wayward  Daughter,      427 

Bad  News  from  the  Sea,        . 435 

Crucifixion  of  St.  Peter, 439 

Ship  Ahoy  ! 442 

Cruisers  After  the  Battle,              445 

Crossing  the  Bar,     . 447 

Siege  of  Tyre, 451 

War, 453 

Peace, 457 

A  Modern  Club- Room, .    .  463 

The  Two  Roads, 465 

The  Last  Day  of  Sir  Thomas  Moore,     .  469 

The  Young  Princes  in  the  Tower,  ....  471 
Lord    Stanley    Bringing   the    Crown    of 

Richard  to  Richmond  After  the  Battle 

of  Bosworth, 473 

Restoration  of  Jairus'  Daughter 475 

Oliver  Cromwell  at  the  Death-bed  of  his 

Daughter, 477 

Capture  of  the  Bastile,      481 

The  Village  Ph3'sician, 483 

Rolling  Away  the  Stone  from  the  Grave 

of  Lazarus, ,  485 

Grotto  in  the  Luxembourg  Gardens,     .    .  490 

"  A  Gentle  Wafting  to  Immortal  Life, "    .  491 

The  Transfiguration, 493 

It  is  the  Lord, 494 

Taking  up  a  Collection, 499 

A  Mormon's  Wife  Cast  Out, 507 

Decoration  Day, 509 

Purified  through  Fire, 517 

Shadow  Pictures, 521 

The  Circle  of  Peace, 523 

Fast  Falls  the  Eventide, 525 

Day  Dreams, 527 

The  Song  of  the  Swan, 528 

A  Faithful  Servant, 531 

John  in  the  Wilderness, 534 

A  Quiver  Full  of  Children, 539 

Home  at  Last, 543 


\ 


ABIvAZE  of  splendor  is  the  pictorial  part  of  this  book,  an  art 
gallery  on  the  wing.  You  need  not  visit  New  York,  or 
Dresden,  or  Berlin,  or  Rome  to  see  the  masterpieces,  for  the 
best  part  of  them  is  now,  my  reader,  between  your  forefinger  and 
thumb.  The  publishers  of  this  book  have  ransacked  the  earth  for 
these  three  hundred  and  thirteen  gems.  No  subscription  book  ever 
published  has  had  such  beautiful  pictures.  Let  me  open  the  door 
for  these  queens  of  art. 

In  that  one  marvelous  picture  see  the  world  put  down  all  its 
troubles  at  Christ's  feet,  a  brook  emptying  into  an  ocean.  Behold 
on  that  other  page  the  representation  of  a  cross  all  abloom  with 
prayer,  and  the  red  roses  of  childish  health,  and  the  white  lilies  of 
venerable  locks,  and  empty  hands  uplifted  in  supplication,  and  full 
hands  stretched  down  in  supply,  enough  to  induce  all  the  world  to 
cry  out,  "  Let  us  pray  !  "  On  that  other  page  see  the 
><V  .  lion  of  persecution  and  the  face  of  Christian  martyrdom 

confront  each  other,  while  the  piled-up  tiers  of  the  Colos- 
seum and  the  unseen   galleries  of  the  ages   look  down 


I  f'1'/^ 


thank 


God,  that 
emerging 
the  Colos- 
the  Lion  of 
other  page 


INTRODUCTION. 


how  sympathetically  Christ  treats  a  sick  child,  the  anxious  mother  looking  on. 
I  warrant  that  child  got  well,  for  what  sickness  could  baffle  such  a  Doctor? 
Behold  on  that  other  page  the  three  crosses,  goodness  in  the  centre,  recklessness 
on  one  side,  and  penitence  on  the  other.  Did 
ever  a  silent  picture  have  so  many  voices  of 
execration  and  worship,  humiliation  and  vic- 
tory, crime  and  innocence,  hell  and  heaven  ? 
Was  there  ever  such  a  centre  to  such  a  circum- 
ference ?  Of  what  crime  had  that  victim  on 
the  middle  cross  been  guilty  that  He  should 
be  made  the  object  of  the  mob's  fury  ? 
Guilt}'  of  only  one  crime,  the  crime  of 
coming  to  save  a  world.  O  my  soul !  was 
there  ever  such  a  criminal,  was  there  ever 
such  a  crime  !  But  I  cannot  walk  with  you 
Sljl  all  round  this    Louvre,   this    Luxem- 

bourg, this  Dusseldorf  of  paintings  and  engravings.      Having  introduced 
you  to  the  great  artists  I   must  let   them  take  you  the  rest  of  the  way. 
Thank  God,  morning,  noon  and  night,  for  pictures,  instructive  pictures, 
^RvOv{3    inspiring  pictures  ! 

What  a  poor  world  this  would  be  if  it  were  not  for  pictures  !  I 
refer  to  your  memory  and  mine  when  I  ask  if  your  knowledge  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures  has  not  been  mightily  augmented  by  the  wood- 
cuts or  engravings  in  the  old  family  Bible,  out  of  which  father  and 
mother  read,  and  laid  on  the  table  in  the  old  homestead  when  you 
were  boys  and  girls.  The  Bible  scenes  which  we  all 
"">».  carry  in    our  minds  were  not    gotten  from  the  Bible 

topology,  but  from  the  Bible  pictures.     To  prove  the 
truth  of  it  in  my  own  case,  the  other  day  I  took  up 
the  old  family  Bible  which   I   inherited.     Sure 
encmgh,  what   I  have  carried  in  my  mind  of 
Ryi      Jacob's  ladder  was  exactly  the  Bible  engraving 
of  Jacob's  ladder;  and  so  with  Samson 
carrying  off  the  gates  of  Gaza;  Elisha 
restoring   the    Shunamite's    son;    the 
massacre  of  the   itniocents; 
Christ    blessing   little  chil- 
dren;    the  Crucifixion    and 
the    Last  Judgment.       My 
idea  of  all  these  is  that  of 


15  o  r^ot 


BAD 
INTENTIONS  Coyj 


TOus 


Nk: 


WICKED  ACTS     Perj^ 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  old  Bible  engravings  which  I  scanned  before  I  could  read  a  word.  The  great 
intelligence  abroad  about  the  Bible  did  not  come  from  the  general  reading  of 
the  book,  for  the  majority  of  the  people  read  it  but  little,  if  they  read  it  at 
all  ;  but  all  the  sacred  scenes  have  been  put  before  the  great  masses,  and  no 
printer's  ink,  but  the  pictorial  art  must  have  the  credit  of  the  achievement.  First, 
painter's  pencil  for  the  favored  few,  and  then  engraver's  plate  or  wood-cut  for 
millions  on  millions  ! 

In  this  connection  I  implore  all  parents  to  see  that  in  their  households  they 
have  neither  in  book,  nor  newspaper,  nor  on  canvas  anything  that  will  deprave. 
Pictures  are  no  longer  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  afiBuent.  There  is  not  a 
comfortable  home  that  has  not  specimens  of  w^ood-cut  or  steel  engraving,  if  not  of 
painting,  and 


I 


fpNAy5G;.oo  TO  Keep 


-^T'^^l 


your  whole 
family  will 
feel  the  moral 
uplifting  or 
depression. 
Have  nothing 
on  5^our  wall 
or  in  books 
that  will  fa- 
miliarize the 
young  with 
scenes  of  cru-  _^'^^•«.»S■ 

elty  or  wassail;  have  only  those  sketches  made  by  artists  in  elevated  moods, 
and  none  of  those  scenes  that  seem  the  product  of  artistic  delirium  tremens. 
Pictures  are  not  only  a  strong  but  a  universal  language.  The  human  race  is 
divided  into  almost  as  many  languages  as  there  are  nations,  but  the  pictures  may 
speak  to  people  of  all  tongues.  Volapuk,  many  have  hoped,  with  little  reason, 
would  become  a  world-wide  language,  and  printer's  types  have  no  emphasis  com- 
pared with  it.  We  say  that  children  are  fond  of  pictures;  but  notice  any  man 
when  he  takes  up  a  book,  and  you  will  see  that  the  first  thing  that  he  looks  at  is 
the  pictures.  Have  only  those  in  your  house  that  appeal  to  the  better  nature. 
One  engraving  has  sometimes  decided  an  eternal  destiny. 

At  the  Cyclorama  of  Gettysburg  one  day  a  blind  man,  who  lost  his  sight  in 
that  battle,  was  with  his  child  heard  talking  while  standing  before  that  picture. 
The  blind  man  said  to  the  daughter:  "  Are  there  at  the  right  of  the  picture  some 
regiments  marching  up  a  hill  ?"  "  Yes,"  she  said.  "  Well,"  said  the  blind  man, 
' '  is  there  a  general  on  horseback  leading  them  on  ?"  "  Yes, ' '  she  said.  ' '  Well,  is 
there  rushing  down  on  these  men  a  cavalry  charge  ?"    "  Yes, ' '  was  the  reply.    ' '  And 


xxxviii  INTRODUCTION. 

do  there  seem  to  be  many  dying  and  dead?"  "  Yes,"  was  the  answer.  "  Well, 
now,  do  you  see  a  shell  from  the  woods  bursting  near  the  wheel  of  a  cannon?" 
"Yes,"  she  said.  "Stop  right  there  !"  said  the  blind  man.  "That  is  the  last 
thing  I  ever  saw  on  earth  !  What  a  time  it  was,  Jenny,  when  I  lost  my  ej-esight !" 
But  when  you,  who  have  found  life  a  hard  battle,  a  very  Gettysburg,  shall  stand 
in  the  Royal  Gallery  of  Heaven,  and  with  your  new  vision  begin  to  see  and 
understand  that  which  in  your  earthly  blindness  you  could  not  see  at  all,  you  will 
point  out  to  your  celestial  comrades,  perhaps  to  j-our  own  dear  children  who  have 
gone  before,  the  scenes  of  the  earthly  conflicts  in  which  you  participated,  saying: 
"There,  from  that  hill  of  prosperity  I  was  driven  back;  in  that  valley  of  humilia- 
tion I  was  wounded.  There  I  lost  my  eyesight.  That  was  the  way  the  world 
looked  when  I  last  saw  it."  But  what  a  grand  thing  to  get  celestial  vision,  and 
stand  here  before  the  cyclorama  of  all  worlds  while  the  Rider  on  the  white  horse 
goes  on  "conquering  and  to  conquer,"  the  moon  under  His  feet  and  the  stars  of 
heaven  for  His  tiara  ! 

This  book  is  born  under  very  bright  skies.  Of  all  the  centuries  this  is  the 
best  centur>',  and  of  all  the  decades  of  the  century  this  is  the  best  decade,  and  of 
all  the  years  of  the  decade  this  is  the  best  year,  and  of  all  the  months  in  the  year 
this  is  the  best  month,  and  of  all  the  days  of  the  month  this  is  the  best  da3^ 
Although  this  book  may  speak  of  griefs  and  wrongs,  it  is  with  full  belief  that 
there  is  a  catholicon  that  can  cure  anything  and  everything.  The  world  is  very 
much  what  we  make  it.  Show  me  the  color  of  a  man's  spectacles  and  I  will  tell 
you  what  kind  of  a  world  it  is.  Blue  spectacles,  a  blue  world.  Green  spectacles, 
a  green  world.  Yellow  spectacles,  a  jaundiced  world.  Transparent  spectacles,  the 
beautiful  world  that  God  made  it.  The  first  thing  is  to  have  the  heart  right,  the 
second  is  to  have  the  liver  right.  My  friend  has  for  many  yearl^been  troubled 
with  indigestion.  Desirous  of  cheering  him  up  I  looked  out  of  the  window  and 
said:  "  That  snow  is  beautiful."  He  answered:  "  It  will  turn  to  slush  and  sleet." 
I  said:  "  The  human  body  is  a  fine  piece  of  mechani.sm."  He  answered:  "  Warts, 
croup,  marasmus,  corns,  bunions,  gout  and  indigestion."  I  hoisted  a  window  and 
caught  one  of  the  flying  snowflakes  and  put  it  under  a  microscope  and  said:  "  I 
see  God  walking  in  this  palace,  the  jewels  of  heaven  are  in  these  vases;  I  see  the 
couriers  of  celestial  dominion  pawing  tho.se  crj'stal  pavements."  He  turned  up 
his  coat  collar  and  said:  "  I  am  in  a  perfect  chill;  plea.se  to  put  down  that 
window."  I  grew  vehement  and  .said:  "You  must  have  noticed  that  this  is  a 
splendid  world;  all  the  looms  of  heaven  must  have  been  at  work  on  the  wing  of 
a  kingfisher.  What  morning  was  it  that  a  warble  slipped  heaven  and  this  oriole 
plucked  it  ?  What  grotesque  rock  of  the  mountain  hath  set  the  streams  into 
roystering  laughter  ?  What  liarp  of  heaven  gives  the  pitch  to  the  music  of  the 
south  wind  ?     There  is  enough  wi.sdom  to  confound  the  earth  and  the  heavens  in 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxix 

the  structure  of  one  cricket.  Even  the  weeds  of  the  field  are  dressed  like  the 
daughters  of  God,  and  men  may  sneer  at  their  commonness,  but  have  no  capacity 
to  fathom,  or  climb,  or  compass  the  infinity  of  beaut)-  in  a  dandelion  or  the  blossom 
of  a  potato  top.  At  the  foot  of  this  tuberose  angelic  equipage  must  halt  and  its 
cohort,  climbing  the  winding  stair  of  leaf,  look  off  upon  the  kingdoms  of  floral 
wonder  and  the  glory  of  them.  On  a  summer  night  I  have  seen  the  stars  of 
heaven  and  the  dews  of  earth  married,  the  grass-blades  holding  up  their  fingers 
for  the  setting  of  the  wedding  signet,  while  voices  from  above  said:  '  With  this 
ring  I  thee  endow  with  all  my  light,  and  love,  and  splendor  celestial.'  At  sunset 
I  have  seen  the  flaming  chariots  of  God  drive  down  into  Lake  Winnipiseogee,  the 
panting  nostrils  stirring  the  water  and  the  spray  like  dust  tossed  from  the  glitter- 
ing wheels."  "  Bosh!  "  cried  my  invalid  friend,  "  I  never  saw  anything  like  that 
in  all  my  life."  So  that,  handing  him  over  a  bottle  of  Hoofland's  Dyspeptic 
Bitters,  I  retired  to  my  room  to  consider  the  value  of  a  cheerful  spirit. 

The  most  of  the  things  of  this  life  may  be  set  to  music,  but  people  get  the 
wrong  tune  and  sing  Naomi  or  Windham  when  they  ought  to  set  things  to  the 
music  of  Mount  Pisgah  and  Coronation.  We  may  not  all  of  us  have  the  means 
to  graduate  at  Harvard,  Yale  or  Oxford,  but  there  is  a  college  at  which  all  of  us 
graduate — the  college  of  hard  knocks.  Misfortune,  Fatigue,  Exposure  and 
Disaster  are  the  professors;  kicks,  cuffs  and  blows  are  the  curriculum;  the  day  we 
leave  the  world  is  our  graduation;  some  sit  down  and  cry;  some  turn  their  faces 
to  the  wall  and  pout;  others  stand  up  and  conquer.  Happy  the  bee  that  even 
under  leaden  skies  looks  for  blossoming  buckwheat  !  Wise  the  fowl  that,  instead 
of  standing  in  the  snow  with  one  foot  drawn  up  under  the  wing,  ceases  not  all  day 
to  peck  !     Different  ways  of  looking  at  things. 

Raindrop  the  first:  "Always  chill  and  wet,  tossed  by  the  wind,  devoured  by 
the  sea." 

Raindrop  the  second:  "Aha!  The  sun  kissed  me,  the  flower  caught  me,  the 
fields  blessed  me." 

Brook  the  first:   "Alas,  me  !  struck  of  the  rock,  dashed  of  the  mill-wheel." 

Brook  the  second:  "  I  sang  the  miller  to  sleep,  I  ground  the  grist !  Oh,  this 
gay  somersault  over  the  wheel  !     Over  the  wheel  1" 

Horse  the  first:  "  Pull,  pull,  pull  ;  this  tugging  in  traces  and  lying  back  in 
the  breeching,  and  standing  at  a  post  with  the  sharp  wind  hanging  icicles  from 
my  nostrils. ' ' 

Horse  the  second  gives  a  horse  laugh:  "  Useful  life  I  have  been  permitted  to 
lead.  See  that  corn;  I  helped  break  the  sod  and  run  out  the  furrows.  On  a  star- 
light night  I  filled  the  ravines  and  mountains  with  the  voice  of  jingling  bells  and 
the  laughter  of  the  sleigh-riding  party.  Then  to  have  the  children  to  throw  in  an 
extra  quart  at  my  whinny,  and  to  have  Jane  pat  me  on  the  nose  and  say,  '  Poor 


xl 


INTRODUCTION. 


Charlie  !'  and  to  bound  along  with  arched  neck,  and  flaming  eye,  and  clattering 
hoof,  and  hear  people  say,  '  There  goes  a  two-forty  !'  " 

Bird  the  first;  "Weary  of  migration  !  No  one  to  pay  me  for  song.  Only 
here  to  be  shot  at." 

Bird  the  second:  ' '  I  have  banquet  of  a  thousand  wheat  fields.  Cup  of  lily  to 
drink  out  of.  Aisle  of  forest  to  walk  in.  Mount  Washington  under  foot  and  a 
continent  at  a  glance  !" 

Different  ways  of  looking  at  things  ! 

Judging  from  their  looks,  among  the  happiest  people  in  all  the  world  are  the 
apple-stand  women  knitting  under  their  umbrella  while  they  wait  for  customers, 
rag-pickers  who  go  around  with  a  dog-cart,  soap-fat  men  that  shake  the  streetir 

with  boisterous  racket,  day-laborers  that  break 
the  cobble-stones  and   put  down  their  chunk 
of  salt  pork,  with  an  appetite  that  kings 
air  tiers  might  env}-. 
he  largest   number  of 
complainers  you  shall 
among  those 
us  who  have 
lucrative    pro- 
fessions, large 
stores,  well- 
warmed 
houses, 

luxuriant  wardrobes  and  plenty  of  attendants.  It  would  be  well  if,  when  tempted 
to  complain,  we  would  go  down  to  see  how  other  people  have  it.  Saadi,  the  poet 
of  Persia,  in  his  poverty,  walked  the  streets  barefooted  and  soliloquized  day  after 
day:  "  What  a  pity  that  I,  the  greatest  poet  in  Persia,  should  have  no  shoes  !" 
"No  shoes  !"  he  constantly  complained  to  himself,  until  one  day  he  met  a  man 
who  had  no  feet.  "Ah  !"  he  said,  "that  man  is  worse  oif  than  I  am.  I  have 
no  shoes,  but  he  has  no  feet."  According  to  my  calculation  in  the  six  thousand 
years  of  the  world's  existence  there  must  have  been  about  two  million  days  of 
sunshine,  allowing  one  hundred  and  ninety-five  thousand  days  for  storm.  Of  the 
myriads  of  jjlossoms  on  my  peach  orchard  there  was  not  one  blossom  that  did  not 
beat  Walter  Scott's  Marmion  or  John  Milton's  Paradise  Lost.  In  weeding  out 
one  patch  of  canteloupes  I  threw  over  the  fence  about  five  thousand  Tennysons 
and  Longfellows.  Nothing  but  Omnipotence  could  have  made  legs  strong  enough 
to  hold  up  the  great  Thanksgiving  table  of  a  world.  Every  grasshopper  has  a 
solo,  and  ^very  snowflake  a  psalm,  and  every  honej'suckle  a  censer,  and  ever>' 
pond-lily  is  a  gondola  for  eternal   glories  to  sail  in,  and  there  are  pyramids  in 


THE   HEAVENS    DECLARE   THE   GLORY    OF  GOD. 


INTRODUCTION.  xli 

the  cones  of  the  white  pine,  and  the  place  of  the  sunset  is  where  the  river  of 
Delight  flashes  into  the  sea  of  the  great  Forever.  Amid  so  much  beauty  and 
luxuriance  how  can  we  complain  ! 

It  would  be  well  if,  not  only  in  looking  at  our  own  condition,  but  at  other 
people,  we  set  out  the  sparkle  instead  of  the  gloom.  With  five  hundred  faults  of 
our  own,  we  ought  to  let  somebody  else  have  at  least  one.  When  there  is  such 
excellent  hunting  on  our  own  ground,  let  us  not  with  rifle  and  greyhound-pack 
spend  all  our  time  in  scouring  our  neighbor's  lowlands.  I  am  afraid  the  imperfec- 
tions of  other  people  will  kill  us  yet.  All  the  vessels  on  the  sea  seem  to  be  in  bad 
trim  except  our  schooner.  A  person  full  of  faults  is  most  merciless  in  his  criti- 
cism of  the  faults  of  others.  How  much  better,  like  the  sun,  to  find  light  wher- 
ever we  look,  letting  people  have  their  idiosyncrasies  and  every  one  work  in  his 
own  way.  But  people  in  the  critical  mood  groan  after  what  they  call  the  good 
old  days.  They  say:  "Just  think  of  the  pride  of  people  in  our  time.  Just  look  at 
the  ladies'  hats  !"  Why,  there  is  nothing  in  the  ladies'  hats  of  to-da)^  to  equal 
the  coal-scuttle  hats  of  a  hundred  years  ago.  They  say:  "Just  look  at  the  way 
people  dress  their  hair  !"  But  the  extremest  style  of  to-day  will  never  equal  the 
top-knots  which  our  great-grandmothers  wore  put  up  with  high  combs  that  \ve 
would  have  thought  would  have  made  our  great-grandfathers  die  of  laughter. 
The  hair  was  lifted  into  a  pyramid  a  foot  high.  On  the  top  of  that  tower  la}-  a 
white  rosebud.  Shoes  of  bespangled  white  kid  and  heels  two  or  three  inches  high. 
Grandfather  went  out  to  meet  her  on  the  floor  with  coat  of  sky-blue  silk  and  vest 
of  white  satin,  embroidered  with  gold  lace,  lace  ruffles  around  his  wrist  and  his 
hair  falling  in  a  queue.  O  ye  modern  hair-dressers,  stand  aghast  at  the  locks  of 
our  ancestry  !  They  say  our  ministers  are  all  askew,  but  just  think  of  our  clerg>'- 
men  entering  a  pulpit  with  their  hair  fixed  up  in  the  shape  of  some  of  the  ancient 
bishops.  The  great  George  Washington  had  his  horses'  hoofs  blackened  when 
about  to  appear  on  a  parade,  and  writes  to  Europe,  ordering  sent  for  the  use  of 
himself  and  familj^  "one  silver-laced  hat,  one  pair  of  silver  shoe  buckles,  a  coat 
made  of  fashionable  silk,  ofie  pair  of  gold  sleeve  buttons,  six  pairs  of  kid  gloves, 
one  dozen  most  fashionable  cambric  pocket  handkerchiefs,"  besides  ruffles  and 
tucker.  Talk  about  dissipations,  ye  who  have  ever  seen  the  old-fashioned  side- 
board !  Did  I  not  have  an  old  relative  who  always,  when  visitors  came,  used  to 
go  upstairs  and  take  a  drink,  through  economical  habits  not  offering  anything  to 
his  visitors.  On  the  old-time  training  da3's  the  most  sober  men  were  apt  to  take  a 
day  to  themselves.  Many  of  the  fancy  drinks  of  to-day  were  unknown  to  them, 
but  their  hard  cider,  mint  julep,  metheglin,  hot  toddy  and  lemonade  in  which  the 
lemon  was  not  at  all  prominent,  sometimes  made  lively  work  for  the  broad- 
brimmed  hats  and  silver  knee  buckles.  Talk  of  dissipating  parties  of  to-da}^  and 
keeping  of  late  hours  !     Why,  did  they  not  have  their  bees  and  sausage-stuffings 


xlii  INTRODUCTION. 

and  tea  parties  and  dances  that  for  heartiness  and  uproar  utterly  eclipsed  all  the 
waltzes,  lancers,  redowas  and  breakdowns  of  the  nineteenth  century-  ?  And  they 
never  went  home  till  morning  !  And  as  to  the  old-time  courtships,  oh,  my  !  Wash- 
ington Irving  describes  them.  Talk  about  the  dishonesties  of  to-day  !  Why, 
sixty'years  ago  the  Governor  of  New  York  State  had  to  disband  the  Legislature 
because  of  its  utter  corruption.  Think  of  Aaron  Burr,  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States  and  coming  within  one  vote  of  being  President !  Think  of  the 
ministry  having  in  it  such  men  as  Dean  Swift  and  Sterne  !  The  world  was  then 
such  a  bad  place  that  I  do  not  see  how  our  fathers  and  mothers  could  have  been 
induced  to  stay  in  it,  although  on  our  account  I  am  glad  they  consented. 

Notice  the  encouraging  fact  that  the  world  is  coming  under  the  domination 
of  the  intelligent  races.  The  great  characteristics  of  these  races,  as  you  trace 
them  down  from  the  tenth  century  in  England  until  this  present  hour,  are  their 
love  of  liberty,  their  obedience  to  law  and  their  desire  for  progress.  Wherever 
they  advance  go  the  printing-presses  without  censorship  and  the  Bible  without 
arbitrary  interpretation,  prosperous  schools  and  powerful  churches  and  free  consti- 
tutions. The  other  races  seem  shrinking  away  before  the  march  of  the  intelligent 
races  with  the  quick  brain  and  the  hopeful  heart  and  the  brawny  arm.  They  now 
own  more  than  the  eighth  part  of  the  globe.  The  gold  mines  of  the  earth  are  in 
their  possession,  the  Californias  and  the  Australias,  and  they  hold  the  most  impor- 
tant gateways  of  the  world's  commerce  and  power,  India  and  the  Pacific  Islands,  and 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  Gibraltar  and  the  Red  Sea.  The  most  important 
discoveries  of  the  world  have  sprung  from  their  laboratory,  and  the  most  startling 
inventions  have  darted  from  their  brain.  While  these  races  have  sometimes  abused 
their  power  and  sought  advancement  in  improper  ways,  their  main  tendencies  have 
been  right,  and  no  philanthropist  can  read  the  tendencies  of  the  times  in  which  we  live 
without  rejoicing  that  the  intelligent  races  are  becoming  dominant  in  all  the  earth. 

Among  the  encouraging  signs  of  our  time  are  the  unparalleled  developments 
of  the  earth's  material  resources.  Year  by  year  the  world's  harvests  increase,  the 
corn  fields  are  more  golden  and  the  granaries  more  crowded.  New  weapons  have 
been  formed  with  which  to  assault  the  earth  and  make  it  surrender  its  treasures. 
Vegetable  chemistry  has  made  the  dumb  earth  think  and  natural  history  has 
unfolded  a  world  of  practical  information  in  the  plants,  and  insects,  and  animals, 
and  climatology  has  discussed  atmospheres,  and  geology  has  decided  great  ques- 
tions of  soil  until  man  driven  forth  from  paradise  is  culturing  other  Edens  all 
around  the  world.  L,iebig  in  Germany,  and  Mulden  in  Holland,  and*  Payen  in 
France,  and  Anderson  in  England,  and  Silliman  in  America  have  built  their  own 
monuments  in  the  grain  fields,  and  gardens,  and  orchards  of  two  hemispheres. 
Steam-ploughs,  and  self-revolving  rakes,  and  mowing  machines,  and  sheaf-binders, 
and  threshers  of  iron-toothed  cylinders,  and  untold  varieties  of  curious  mechanism 


INTRODUCTION. 


xliii 


with  which  the  fields  and  barns  of 
this  whole  land  hum  and  quake  give 
to  the  swarthiest  industry-  attractions 
weird  and  romantic.  Under  the 
favor  of  Him  who  sets  the  stars  in 
their  courses  and  calls  them  all  by 
their  names  astronomy  has  within 
the  last  few  years  made  splendid 
discoveries  and  afforded  advance- 
ment to  the  arts,  and  given  facilities 
to  navigation,  and  helped  settle  dis- 
puted boundaries,  and  surveyed 
dangerous  coasts,  and  lifted  upon 
the  world  the  very  grandest  evi- 
dence of  God's  power,  and  wisdom, 
^d  goodness.  The  stars  that  in 
their  courses  fought 
against  Sisera  have  been 
marshaled  b}'  the  astro- 
nomer   to    fight 


\? 


mow  sK©ulcl(tsF  keeg  Hieml^rorrt 


evil. 


^V'^ 


for  the  practical 
interests  of  our 
humanity.  Sev- 
enty years  ago 
there  was  but 
one  reliable  ob- 
servatory  in   all 

the  world,  and  that  the  observatory  at  Greenwich,  Now  there 
are  at  least  eightj^  of  these  watch-towers  in  Europe  and  about 
thirty  in  the  United  States.  The  long-continued  study  of 
refraction  by  some  of  the  first  men  of  the  age  has  given 
accuracy  to  scientific  tables  and  catalogues.     Mural  circles  and 


Cotn^  ye 


xliv  INTRODUCTION. 

achromatic  lenses  have  multiplied  useful  apparatus.  The  resolution  of  nebulae 
and  the  determination  of  the  parallax  of  the  fixed  stars,  and  the  finding  of  the 
cometary  orbits,  and  the  coming  out  to  human  observation  of  Vesta,  and  Juno, 
and  Ceres,  and  Pallas,  unknown  toother  ages  of  the  world,  show  that  astronomers 
have  been  busy.  In  one  year  in  the  observatory  at  Washington  a  great  multitude 
of  fifteen  thousand  stars,  which  had  never  been  noticed  in  our  muster-roll  of  the 
heavenly  host,  were  recorded,  a  choir  of  light  and  beaut\-,  rank  above  rank, 
enough  to  make  a  song  as  loud  and  sweet  as  when  at  the  creation  the  morning 
stars  sang  together  and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy.  There  has  not  only 
been  advancement  in  sciences  before  known,  but  others  of  great  importance  have 
been  born  and  baptized  with  scientific  nomenclature  within  the  memory  of  many 
now  living.  Geology,  meteorology,  physical  geography  and  electro-chemistry, 
although  they  have  already  done  such  marvels  for  the  race,-may  be  called  young 
sciences.  You  know  how  geography  has  unfolded  the  wealth  and  glorj-  of  great 
tracts  of  land  entirely  unknown  in  the  last  century.  Into  its  wreath  of  conquest 
it  has  woven  the  cactus  of  the  hidden  tropics,  and  into  its  crown  it  hath  set  the 
crystals  of  Arctic  ice.  Ross,  and  Parry,  and  Franklin,  and  Kane,  and  Schwatka, 
and  De  lyong  ma}'  have  failed  to  discover  the  northwest  passage  to  the  Pacific,  but 
they  discovered  to  the  world  a  heroism  and  self-sacrifice  for  the  cause  of  the  world's 
knowledge  and  welfare  that  will  last  as  long  as  the  pillars  of  ice  that  stand  as 
tablatures  to  those  who  were  buried  beneath  them,  and  as  cenotaphs  to  those  who, 
worn  and  wasted,  came  home  to  die.  Humboldt  in  South  America  and  Mexico, 
and  the  United  States  Exploring  Expedition  on  the  western  coast  of  North 
America,  and  the  British  Expedition  on  the  southern  extremity  of  South  America, 
and  Livingston  and  Stanley  traveling  in  the  cause  of  discovery  among  the  wild 
beasts,  and  the  fiercer  tribes,  and  the  deadliest  plagues  of  Africa;  Dr.  Robinson, 
in  the  Holy  Land,  gathering  up  corroborations  of  Bible  statement,  and  missionary 
Thompson,  in  Syria  finding  the  remains  of  ancient  cities  of  the  Bible  and  scrip- 
tural customs  still  in  existence,  and  Lieutenant  Lynch,  of  our  own  navy,  exploring 
Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea,  not  only  in  behalf  of  commerce,  but  to  the  advantage 
of  that  kingdom  which  is  not  of  this  v/orld — all  these  only  give  us  a  feeble  idea 
of  what  is  being  suffered  and  achieved  for  the  great  cause  of  geographical  dis- 
covery. 

The  progress  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  is  another  encouraging  fact.  God 
never  intended  His  children  to  be  oppressed,  and  yet  gigantic  tyrannies  and  des- 
potisms have  walked  the  world  over,  setting  their  iron  heel  on  the  necks  of  men 
who  were  made  in  God's  own  image  and  who  shall  be  great  in  the  coronations  of 
heaven.  Ages  dragged  their  weary  lengths  along,  horrible  with  midnight  shadow 
and  ponderous  with  the  chains  of  oppression,  the  chopping  of  the  guillotine 
answering  to  the  crackling  of  the  fires  of  martyrdom.     How  much  of  all  this  has 


INTRODUCTION. 


xlv 


vanished  !  Within  fifty  or  sixty  years  the  earth  has  been  revolutionized.  From 
the  time  of  the  French  Revolution  of  1830  the  world  began  to  shake  off  the  horrid 
nightmare,  and  to-day  there  are  in  Europe  about  fifty  free  constitutions,  some  of 
them  indicative  of  more  and  others  of  less  liberty,  some  .    ^ 

of  them  on  a  large  scale  and  some  of  them  on   a  .small 
scale.      But  what  a  crashing-down  of  absolutism  !     What 

an  advance  of  free  principles  !     Now  while 

I  write  there  are  millions  of   brave  hearts 

all  over   Europe  who   are  waiting  for  the 

moment  in  which  to  rise  with  their  majesty 

and  with  the  accumulated  wrath  of  ages  to 

hurl    up  until   the   heavens  are  blackened 

with  the  wreck  the  governments  that  have 

defied  God  and  trampled  upon  His  children. 

And   in   that   day  the   little    finger  of  this 

struggling  cause  shall  be  mightier  than  the 

glittering  bayonets  of  a  world  in  arms. 

Among  the   encouraging  things   in 

regard  to  our  own  country  is  the  fact  that 

all  sections  have  come  to  the^most  thorough 

feeling  of    amity  that  we   have  ever  had. 

We  were  for  a  great  many  years  under  the 

delusion   that   we   were    at    peace    in   this 

countr)',  but  there  never  has  been  any  peace 

until  within  the  last  twenty  years.      It  was 

war  of   pen  and  war  of  speech.     Eook  at 

the    Congressional    record   of    1830.      W^as 

that  peace  ?     The   Congressional  record  of 

1837,  of  18^6,  of  1857,  of  i860.     Was  that 

peace?    No!    Because  of  the  inimical  nature 

of  the  interests  of  the  North  and  the  South, 

there  was  perpetual  collision.     It  was  free 

labor  against  slave  labor;  it  was  Massachu- 
setts against  South   Carolina;    it  was    New  York  against  Virginia 

representation;    it  was  Charleston  Mercury  against  PAhaxvy  Jo7ir7ial; 

challenge,  altercation  and  duel  all  over  the  land.  Even  at  the  time 
^  when  our  Northern  cities  were  in  riot  and  bloodshed  about  the  rendi- 
tion of  black  men  to  their  owners,  we  were  under  the  delusion  that  we  were  at  peace. 
Monstrous  absurdity!  It  was  war,  war  perpetual.  Pennsylvania  Hall  burned  on 
account  of  this  political  agitation  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia  !     Was  that  peace  ? 


Iv 


xlvi 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  printing-press  of  the  Alton  Observer  thrown  into  the  river.  Was  that  peace  ? 
In  1820  the  air  was  hot  with  sectional  imprecation  about  the  admission  of  Missouri 
as  a  slave  State.  Was  that  peace  ?  Presbyterian  and  Methodist  churches,  North 
and  South,  split  with  a  fracture  that  shook  all  Christeiftlom  on  account  of  political 
agitation.  Was  that  peace?  No!  All  Billingsgate  and  scorn,  and  vituperation 
and  hatred,  and  revenge  and  blasphemy  on  both  sides  were  exhausted.  It  was 
war  of  tongue,  war  of  pen,  war  of  trade,  war  of  Church — War  !  Bitter,  furious, 
consuming,  relentless.  Thank  God  that  time  has  gone  by.  We  have  come  to  a 
new  state  of  feeling  and  brotherhood,  such  as  we  have  never  enjoyed,  and  our 
Congress,  instead  of  spending  nine-tenths  of  its  time  wasting  the  public  treasury 
in  discussing  sectional  difficulties,  as  it  used  to  do,  is  now  disposed  to  give  nine- 
tenths  of  its  time  to  the  discussion  of  the  agricultural,  the  mining,  the  manufac- 
turing, the  commercial,  the  literary  and  the  moral  interests  of  this 
nation.  You  will  hear  the  anvil  ring  with  a  sturdier  blow.  You 
will  see  the  furnace  glow  with  a  fiercer  fire.  You  will  see 
/  the  wheel-buckets  strike  with  a  swifter  dash.  We  have 
a  land  capable  of  supporting  three  thousand  six  hundred 
millions  of  people;  feeding  them,  clothing  them, 
sheltering  them.  We  have  just  begun  to  open  the 
outside  door  of  this  great  underground  vault  in 
which  nature  holds  its  treasures — the  copper, 
the  zinc,  the  coal,  the  iron,  the  gold,  the  silver. 
What  populations,  what  industries,  what  enter- 
prises, what  wealth,  what  civilization  you 
might  argue  from  the  coal  fields  !  What  an 
advance  from  the  time  when,  under 
11  g  Edward,  a  man  was  put  to 
death  for  burning  coal,  and 
from  the  time  when  the 
House  of  Commons 
forbade  the  use 
of  what 


INTRODUCTION. 


xlvii 


called  "the  noxious  fuel,"  and  these  days  when  the  long  trains  rush  down  from 
the  mines  and  fill  our  coal  bins  and  gorge  the  furnaces  of  our  ocean  steamers  ! 
One  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  square  miles  of  coal  fields — two  fields  of  coal, 
one  reaching  from  Illinois  down  through  Missouri  into  Iowa,  and  the  other  from 
Pennsylvania  down  into  Alabama,  while  side  by  side  with  these  great  coal  fields 
are  the  mines  of  iron.  These  two  giants,  these  two  Titans  of  the  earth,  iron  and 
coal,  insuring  perpetual  wealth  to  the  nation,  standing  side  by  side  to  help  each 
other,  the  iron  to  excavate  and  pry  up  the  coal,  and  the  coal  to  smelt  and  forge 
and  mould  the  iron.  Eight  hundred  thousand  tons  of  iron  sent  forth  from  the 
mines  in  one  year  in  this  country.  Thirty-two  million  tons  of  coal  sent  out  from 
the  mines  of 
this  country 
in  a  year. 
And  all  this 
only  a  proph- 
ecy of  a  larger 
yield  when 
we  shall  come 
on  with  lon- 
ger trains  and  : 
more  miners 
and  stronger 
machinery  to 
develop,  to 
gather  up,  to 
transport  and 
to  employ  all 
this  treasure. 
Make  this  cal- 
culation for  yourselves  if  you  can  make  it:  If  England's  coal  field,  thirty-two 
miles  long  by  eight  miles  wide,  can  keep,  as  it  does,  seventeen  million  six 
hundred  thousand  spindles  at  work  in  that  small  island,  what  ma)^  we  not 
expect  of  our  national  industries  when  these  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand 
square  miles  of  coal  shall  unite  with  the  one  hundred  and  sixty  tliousand  square 
miles  of  iron,  both  stretching  themselves  up  to  full  strength  and  height,  two 
black,  world-shaking  giants  ? 

Eift  up  your  eyes,  O  nation  of  God's  right  hand,  and  see  the  approach  of  a 
future  grand  with  success  !  Build  larger  your  barns  for  the  harvests  !  Dig  deeper 
the  vats  for  the  spoil  of  the  vineyards  !  Enlarge  your  warehouses  for  the  mer- 
chandise !    Build  larger  your  galleries  of  art  for  statues  and  pictures  !    But  remember 


xlviii 


INTRODUCTION. 


that  national  wealth  iinsanctified  is  voluptuous  waste,  is  magnificent  woe,  is 
splendid  rottenness,  is  gilded  death.  Woe  to  us  for  the  wine  vats  if  Drunkenness 
wallows  in  them  !  Woe  for  the  harvests  if  Greed  sickles  them  !  Woe  for  the  mer- 
chandise if  Avarice  swallows  it !  Woe  for 
the  cities  if  Misrule  ravages  them  !  Woe  to 
the  land  if  God-defying  Crime  debauches  it ! 
Our  only  safety  is  more  Bibles,  more  pulpits, 
more  free  schools,  more  Christian  printing- 
presses.  And  therefore  I  contribute  my  mite 
to  the  cause  by  sending  forth  this  book. 

And  now  my  hearty  greeting  is  to  the 
people.  Great  is  the  responsibility  of  publish- 
ing a  book,  especially  in  this  case,  where  the 
publishers,  a  month  before  the  book  is  published,  have  sold 
250,000  copies  thereof,  an  unprecedented  occurrence  in  the 
history  of  literature.  Among  the  pleasant  thoughts  with  which  I  .send  forth 
this  book  on  "The  Pathway  op  lyiFE,"  is  the  as.surance  that  it  is  to  have  the 
companionship  of  the  greatest  painters  and  .sculptors  of  all  nations.  Good 
morning,  Raphael,  and  Greenough,  and  Rembrandt,  and  Inman,  and  Giotto, 
and  Coleman,  and  Dore,  and  Kneller,  and  Joshua  Reynolds  !  I,et  me  have  the 
pleasure  of  introducing  you  to  my  readers. 


//-^^^tL^ 


^' 


Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  Novemhrr  9,   1S.S8. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


"THE  ANGELS  OF  THE  GRASS." 

IBL/ICAL  writers  uniformly  regard  the  lily  as  the  queen  of 
flowers.  The  rose  may  have  disputed  her  throne  in  modern 
times,  and  won  it;  but  the  rose  originally  had  only  five 
petals.  It  was  under  the  long  continued  and  intense  gaze 
of  the  world  that  the  rose  blushed  into  its  present  beauty. 
In  the  Bible  train,  cassia  and  hyssop  and  frankincense  and 
myrrh  and  spikenard  and  camphire  and  the  rose  follow  the 
lily.  Fourteen  times  in  the  Bible  is  the  lily  mentioned — 
only  twice  the  rose.  The  rose  may  now  have  wider  empire,  but  the  lily  reigned 
in  the  time  of  Esther,  in  the  time  of  Solomon,  in  the  time  of  Christ. 

Caesar  had  his  throne  on  the  hills.  The  lily  had  her  throne  in  the  valley. 
In  the  greatest  sermon  that  was  ever  preached  there  was  only  one  flower,  and  that 
a  lily.  The  Bedford  dreamer,  John  Bunyan,  entered  the  House  of  the  Interpreter 
and  was  shown  a  cluster  of  flowers  and  was  told  to  "  consider  the  lilies. " 

We  may  study  or  reject  other  sciences  at  our  option.  It  is  so  with  astronom}^ 
it  is  so  with  chemistry,  it  is  so  with  jurisprudence,  it  is  so  with  physiology,  it  is 
so  with  geology;  but  the  science  of  botany  Christ  commands  us  to  study  when  He 
says:  "  Consider  the  lilies."  Measure  them  from  root  to  tip  of  petal.  Inhale  their 
breath.  Notice  the  gracefulness  of  their  poise.  Hear  the  whisper  of  the  white 
lips  of  the  Eastern  and  of  the  red  lips  of  the  American  lil3^ 

MEMBERS  OF  THE  LILY  FAMILY. 

Belonging  to  this  royal  family  of  lilies  is  the  lily  of  the  Nile,  the  Japan  lily, 
the  Lady  Washington  of  the  Sierras,  the  Golden  Band  lily,  the  Giant  lily  of 
Nepaul,  the  Turk's  Cap  lily,  the  African  lily  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  All 
these  lilies  have  the  royal  blood  in  their  veins.  But  I  take  the  lily  as  typical  of 
all  flowers,  and  Easter  day,  garlanded  with  all   this  opulence  of  floral  beauty, 

4  (49) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  51 

seems  to  address  us,  saying:  "Consider  the  lilies,  consider  the  azaleas,  consider 
the  fuchsias,  consider  the  geraniums,  consider  the  ivies,  consider  the  hyacinths, 
consider  the  heliotropes,  consider  the  oleanders. ' '  With  deferential  and  grateful 
and  intelligent  and  worshipful  souls,  consider  them.  Not  with  insipid  senti- 
mentalism,  or  with  sophomoric  vaporing,  but  for  grand  and  practical  and  ever)-- 
•da}',  and,  if  need  be,  homely  uses,  consider  them. 

The  flowers  are  the  angels  of  the  grass:  they  all  have  voices.  When  the 
clouds  speak  they  thunder;  when  the  whirlwinds  speak  they  scream;  when  the 
cataracts  speak  they  roar,  but  when  the  flowers  speak  they  always  whisper.  I  will 
attempt  to  interpret  their  message.  What  have  ye  to  say,  O  ye  angels  of  the 
grass,  to  these  my  readers  ?  I  mean  to  discuss  here  what  flowers  are  good  for. 
That  is  my  subject:  What  are  flowers  good  for? 

In  the  first  place,  they  are  good  for  lessons  of  God's  providential  care.  That 
was  Christ's  first  thought.  All  these  flowers  seem  to  address  us,  saying:  "God 
will  give  you  apparel  and  food.  We  have  no  wheel  with  which  to  spin,  no  loom 
with  which  to  weave,  no  sickle  with  which  to  harvest,  no  well-sweep  with  which 
to  draw  water;  but  God  slakes  our  thirst  with  dew,  and  God  feeds  us  with  the 
bread  of  sunshine,  and  God  has  appareled  us  with  more  than  the  Solomonic 
regality.  We  are  prophetesses  of  adequate  wardrobe.  If  God  so  clothe  us,  the 
grass  of  the  field,  will  He  not  much  more  clothe  you,  O  ye  of  little  faith?" 

Men  and  women  of  worldly  anxieties,  take  this  message  home  with  you. 
How  long  has  God  taken  care  of  you  ?  Quarter  of  the  journej^  of  life  ?  half  the 
journey  of  life  ?  three-quarters  the  journey  of  life  ?  Can  you  not  trust  Him  the 
rest  of  the  way  ?  God  does  not  promise  you  anything  like  that  wdiich  the  Roman 
Emperor  had  on  his  table,  at  vast  expense—  500  nightingales'  tongues — but  He 
has  promised  to  take  care  of  you.  He  has  promised  you  the  necessities,  not  the 
luxuries — bread,  not  cake.  If  God  so  luxuriantly  clothes  the  grass  of  the  field, 
will  He  not  provide  for  you.  His  living  and  immortal  children  ?     He  will. 

No  wonder  Martin  Euther  always  had  a  flower  on  his  writing  desk  for 
inspiration.  Through  the  cracks  of  the  prison  floor  a  flower  grew  up  to  cheer 
Picciola.  Mungo  Park,  the  great  traveler  and  explorer,  had  his  life  saved  by  a 
flower.  He  sank  down  in  the  desert  to  die,  but  seeing  a  flower  near  by,  it  sug- 
gested God's  merciful  care,  and  he  got  up  with  new  courage  and  traveled  on  to 
safet3^     I  said  the  flowers  are  the  angels  of  the  grass;  I  add  now  they  are  the 

•evangels  of  the  sky. 

FLOWERS  FOR  THE  BRIDAL  DAY. 

If  you  insist  on  a.sking  me  the  question:  What  are  flowers  good  for?  I 
respond.  They  are  good  for  the  bridal  day.  The  bride  nutst  have  them  on  her 
brow  and  she  must  have  them  in  her  hand.  The  marriage  altar  nui.st  be  covered 
with  them,     A  wedding  without  flowers  would  be  as  inappropriate  as  a  wedding 


52  THE  PATHWAY  OF  IJFE. 

without  music.  At  such  a  time  they  are  for  congratulation  and  prophecies  of 
good.  So  much  of  the  pathway  of  life  is  covered  up  with  thorns,  we  ought  to 
cover  the  beginning  with  orange  blossoms. 

Flowers  are  appropriate  on  such  occasions,  for  in  99  out  of  100  cases  it  is  the 
very  best  thing  that  could  have  happened.  The  world  may  criticise  and  pronounce 
it  an  inaptitude,  and  may  lift  its  eyebrows  in  surprise  and  think  it  might  suggest 
something  better,  but  the  God  who  sees  the  twenty,  forty,  fifty  years  of  w^edded 
life  before  they  have  begun,  arranges  all  for  the  best,  so  that  flowers  in  almost  all 
cases  are  appropriate  for  the  marriage  day.  The  divergences  of  disposition  will 
become  correspondences,  recklessness  will  become  prudence,  frivolity  will  be  turned 
into  practicality. 

There  has  been  many  an  aged  widowed  soul  who  had  a  carefully  locked  bureau, 
and  in  the  bureau  a  box,  and  in  the  box  a  folded  paper,  and  in  the  folded  paper 
a  half-blown  rose,  slightly  fragrant,  discolored,  carefully  pressed.  She  put  it 
there  forty  or  fifty  years  ago.  On  the  anniversar>^  day  of  her  wedding  she  will 
go  to  the  bureau,  she  will  lift  the  box,  she  will  unfold  the  paper,  and  to  her  eyes 
will  be  exposed  the  half-blown  bud,  and  the  memories  of  the  past  will  rush  upon 
her,  and  a  tear  will  drop  upon  the  flowers;  and  suddenly  it  is  transfigured,  and 
there  is  a  stir  in  the  dust  of  the  anther,  and  it  rounds  out,  and  it  is  full  of  life, 
and  it  begins  to  tremble  in  the  procession  up  the  church  aisle,  and  the  dead  music 
of  a  half  century  ago  conies  throbbing  through  the  air;  and  vanished  faces  reap- 
pear, and  right  hands  are  joined,  and  a  manly  voice  promises:  "  I  will  for  better 
or  for  worse,"  and  the  wedding  march  thunders  a  salvo  of  joy  at  the  departing 
crowd;  but  a  sigh  on  that  anniversary  day  scatters  the  scene.  Under  the  deep- 
fetched  breath,  the  altar,  the  flowers,  the  congratulating  groups  are  scattered,  and 
there  is  nothing  left  but  a  trembling  hand  holding  a  faded  rosebud,  which  is  put 
into  the  paper,  and  then  into  the  box,  and  the  box  carefully  placed  in  the  bureau, 
and  with  a  sharp,  sudden  click  of  the  lock  the  scene  is  over. 

Ah,  my  friends,  let  not  the  prophecies  of  the  flowers  on  your  wedding  day  be 
false  prophecies.  Be  blind  to  each  other's  faults.  Make  the  most  of  each  other's 
excellences.  .  Above  all,  do  not  both  get  mad  at  once?  Remember  the  vows,  the 
ring  on  the  third  finger  of  the  left  hand  and  the  benediction  of  the  calla  lilies. 

FLOWERS  FOR  THE  DEAD. 

If  you  insist  on  asking  me  the  question:  What  are  flowers  good  for?  I 
answer,  They  are  good  to  honor  and  comfort  the  obsequies.  The  worst  gash  ever 
made  into  the  side  of  our  poor  earth  is  the  gash  of  the  grave.  It  is  so  deep,  it  is 
so  cruel,  it  is  so  incurable  that  it  needs  something  to  cover  it  up.  Flowers  for  the 
casket,  flowers  for  the  hearse,  flowers  for  the  cemetery. 


'AN    OFFERING   OF   FI^OWERS." 


(53) 


54 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  TJFE. 


What  a  contrast  between  a  grave  in  a  country  churchyard,  with  the  fence 
broken  down  and  the  tombstone  aslant  and  the  neighboring  cattle  browsing  amid 
the  mullein  stalks  and  the  Canada  thistles,  and  a  June  morning  in  Greenwood,  the 
wave  of  roseate  bloom  rolling  to  the  top  of  the  mounds,  and  then  breaking  into 
foaming  crests  of  white  flowers  all  around  the  pillars  of  dust.  It  is  the  difference 
between  sleeping  under  rags  and  sleeping  under  an  embroidered  blanket.  We 
want  Old  Mortality  with  his  chisel  to  go  through  the  graveyards  of  Christendom, 
and  while  he  carries  a  chisel  in  one  hand  we  want  Old  Mortality  to  have  some 
flower-seed  in  the  palm  of  the  other  hand. 


"Oh,"  you  say,  "The  dead  don't  know;  it  makes  no  difference  to  them." 
I  think  you  are  mistaken.  There  are  not  so  many  steamers  and  rail  trains  coming: 
to  any  living  city  as  there  are  convoys  coming  from  heaven  to  earth;  and  if  there 
be  instantaneous  and  constant  communication  between  this  world  and  the  better 
world,  do  you  not  suppose  your  departed  friends  know  what  j'ou  do  with  their  bodies  ? 
Why  has  God  planted  "golden  rod  "  and  wild  flowers  in  the  forest  and  on  the 
prairie  where  no  human  eye  ever  sees  them  ?  He  planted  them  there  for  invisible 
intelligences  to  look  at  and  admire,  and  when  invisible  intelligences  come  to  look 
at    the    wild    flowers    of  the   woods   and    the   table-lands,    will    they    not    make 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


55 


excursions  and  see  the  flowers  which  you  have  planted  in  affectionate  remem- 
brance of  them  ? 

When  I  am  dead  I  would  like  to  have  a  handful  of  violets — -any  one  could 
pluck  them  out  of  the  grass,  or  some  one  could  lift  from  the  edge  of  the  pond  a 
water  lily — nothing  rarely  expensive  or  insane  display,  as  sometimes  at  funeral 
rites  where  the  display  takes  the  bread  from  the  children's  mouths  and  the  clothes 
from  their  backs,  but  something  from  the  great  democracy  of  flowers.  Rather 
than  imperial  catafalque  of  Russian  Czar,  I  ask  some  one  whom  I  may  have 
helped  by  gos- 
pel sermon  or 
Christian 
deed  to  bring 
a  sprig  of  ar- 
butus or  a 
handful  of 
China -asters. 
It  was  left 
for  modern 
times  to  spell 
respect  for  the 
departed  and 
c  o  m  f  o  r  t  f  o  r 
the  living  in 
letters  of  floral 
gospel.  Pil- 
lows of  flow- 
ers meaning  "the  rose  of  sharon  and  the  lily  of  the  valleys." 
rest  for  the 

pilgrim  who  has  got  to  the  end  of  his  journey.  Anchor  of  flowers,  suggesting  the 
Christian  hope  which  we  have  as  an  anchor  to  the  soul,  sure  and  steadfast.  Cross 
of  flowers,  suggesting  the  tree  on  which  our  sins  were  slain. 

If  I  had  my  way  I  would  cover  wp  all  the  dreamless  sleepers,  whether  in 

golden-handled  casket  or  pine  box,  whether  in  a  king's  mausoleum  or  potter's 

field,  with  radiant  and  aromatic  arborescence.     The  Bible  says,  in  the  midst  of 

the  garden  there  was  a  sepulchre.     I  wish  that  every  sepulchre  might  be  in  the 

midst  of  a  garden. 

RELIGIOUS    SYMBOLISM. 

If  you  insist  on  asking  me  the  question:  What  are  flowers  good  for?  I 
answer,  For  religious  symbolism.  Have  you  ever  studied  vScriptural  flora  ?  The 
Bible  is  an  arboretum,  it  is  a  divine  conservator}',  it  is  an  herbarium  of  exquisite 


56 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


aM 


J  '-\/ 


i-\  i-f 


< 


beauty.  If  you  want  to  illustrate  the  brevity  of  the  finest 
human  life,  you  will  quote  from  Job:  "  A  man  cometh  forth 
as  a  flower  and  is  cut  down;"  or,  you  will  quote  from  the 
Psalmist:  "As  the  flower  of  the  field,  so  perisheth,  the 
wind  passeth  over  it,  and  it  is  gone,"  or,  you  will  quote  from 
Isaiah;  "All  flesh  is  grass,  and  the  goodliness  thereof  is  as 
the  flower  of  the  field;"  or,  you  will  quote  from  James  the 
^i»«  ^^^5-fl  apostle;  "As  the  flower  of  the  grass,  so  he  passeth  away." 
VW^^y  ■  ■    'iM       What  graphic  Bible  symbolism  ! 

^^  "***    -  All  the  cut  flowers  of  Easter  day  will  soon  be  dead, 

whatever  care  you  take  of  them.  Though  morning  and 
night  you  baptize  them  in  the  name  of  the  shower,  the  bap- 
tism will  not  be  to  them  a  saving  ordinance.  They  have 
been  fatally  wounded  with  the  knife  that  cut  them.  They 
are  bleeding  their  life  away;  they  are  dying  now.  The 
fragrance  in  the  air  is  the  departing  and  ascending  spirits. 
Oh,  yes!  flowers  are  almost  human.  Botanists  tell  us 
that  flowers  breathe,  they  take  nourishment,  they  eat,  thej'  drink.  The}-  are 
sensitive.  They  have  their  likes  and  dislikes.  They  sleep,  they  wake.  They 
live  in  families.  They  have  their  ancestors  and  their  descendants,  their  birth, 
their  burial,  their  cradle,  their  grave.  The  zephyr  rocks  the  one,  and  the 
storm  digs  the  trench  for  the  other.  The  cowslip  must  leave  its  gold, 
the  lily  must  leave  its  silver,  the  rose  must  leave  its  diamond  necklace  of 
morning  dew.  Dust  to  dust.  So  we  come  up,  we  pro.sper,  we  spread 
abroad,  we  die,  as  the  flower — as  the  flower  ! 


® 


Change  and  decay  in  all  around  I  see  ; 

O  Thou  who  changest  not,  abide  ^\Jth  me  ! 

Flowers  also  afford  mighty  symbolism  of  Christ,  who  compared  Himself  to 
the  ancient  queen,  the  lily,  and  the  modern  queen,  the  rose,  when  He  said:  "I 
am  the  rose  of  Sharon,  and  the  lily  of  the  valleys."  Redolent  like  the  one,  hum- 
ble like  the  other.     Like  both  appropriate  for  the  sad  who  want  sympathizers,  and 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  57 

for  the  rejoicing  who  want  banqueters.     Hovering  over  the  marriage  ceremony 
like  a  wedding  bell,  or  folded  like  a  chaplet  on  the  pulseless  heart  of  the  dead, 

O  Christ!  let  the  perfume  of  Thy  name  be  wafted  all  around  the  earth — lily 
and  rose,  lily  and  rose — until  the  wilderness  crimson  into  a  garden,  and  the  round 
earth  turn  into  one  great  bud  of  immortal  beauty  laid  against  the  warm  heart  of 
God.  Snatch  down  from  the  world's  banner  eagle  and  lion,  and  put  on  lily  and 
rose,  lily  and  rose. 

EMBLEMS    OF   THE    RESURRECTION. 

But,  my  readers,  flowers  have  no  grander  use  than  when  on  Easter  morning  we 
celebrate  the  reanimation  of  Christ  from  the  catacombs.  All  the  flowers  of  the  day 
spell  resurrection.  There  is  not  a  nook  or  corner  in  all  the  world  but  is  touched 
with  the  incense.  The  women  carried  spices  to  the  tomb  of  Christ,  and  they 
dropped  spices  all  around  about  the  tomb,  and  from  those  spices  have  grown  all 
the  flowers  of  Easter  morn.  The  two  white-robed  angels  that  hurled  the  stone 
away  from  the  door  of  the  tomb,  hurled  it  with  such  violence  down  the  hill 
that  it  crashed  in  the  door  of  the  world's  sepulchre,  and  millions  of  the  stark  and 
dead  shall  come  forth. 

However  labyrinthian  the  mausoleum,  however  costly  the  sarcophagus,  how- 
ever architecturally  grand  the  necropolis,  however  beautifully  parterred  the  family 
grounds,  we  want  them  all  broken  up  by  the  Eord  of  the  resurrection.  The 
forms  that  we  laid  away  with  our  broken  hearts  must  rise  again.  Father  and 
mother — they  must  come  out.  Husband  and  wife — they  must  come  out. 
Brothers  and  sisters — they  must  come  out.  Our  darling  children— they  must 
come  out.  The  eyes  that  with  trembling  fingers  we  closed  must  open  in  the 
lustre  of  resurrection  morn.  The  arms  that  we  folded  in  death  must  join  ours 
in  embrace  of  reunion.  The  beloved  voice  that  was  hushed  must  be  returned. 
The  beloved  form  must  come  up  without  its  infirmities,  without  its  atigues — it 
must  come  up. 

Oh,  how  long  it  seems  for  some  of  you.  Waiting— waiting  for  the  resur- 
rection. How  long  !  how  long  !  I  make  for  your  broken  hearts  a  cool,  soft 
bandage  of  Easter  lilies.  Last  Easter  there  was  sent  through  the  mails  a  beau- 
tiful Easter  card,  on  the  top  of  it  a  representation  of  that  exquisite  flower  called 
the  "  trumpet  creeper,"  and  under  it  the  inscription:  "  The  trumpet  shall  sound, 
and  the  dead  shall  be  raised."     I  comfort  j-ou  with  the  thought  of  resurrection. 

When  Lord  Nelson  was  buried  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  in  London,  the  heart 
of  all  England  was  stirred.  The  procession  passed  on  amid  the  sobbing  of  a 
nation.  There  were  thirty  trumpeters  stationed  at  the  door  of  the  Cathedral,  with 
instruments  of  music  in  hand  waiting  for  the  signal,  and  when  the  illustrious  dead 
arrived  at  the  gates  of  St.   Paul's  Cathedral,  these  thirty  trumpeters  gave  one 


58 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


united  blast,  and  then  all  was  silent.  Yet  the  trumpets  did  not  wake  the 
dead.  He  slept  right  on.  But  I  have  to  tell  you,  what  thirty  trumpeters  could 
not  do  for  one  man.  one  trumpeter  will  do  for  all  nations.  The  ages  have  rolled 
on,  and  the  clock  of  the  world's  destiny  strikes  nine,  ten,  eleven,  twelve,  and  time 
shall  be  no  longer. 

THE  DEAD  AROUSED. 

Behold  the  archangel  hovering.  He  takes  the  trumpet,  points  it  this  way, 
puts  its  lips  to  his  lips,  and  then  blows  one  long,  loud,  terrific,  thunderous  rever- 
berating and  resurrectionary  blast.  L,ook  !  Look  !  They  rise  !  The  dead  !  The 
dead  !  Some  coming  forth  from  the  family  vault;  some  from  the  city  cemetery; 
some  from  the  country  graveyard.  Here  a  spirit  is  joined  to  its  body,  and  there 
another  spirit  is  joined  to  another  body,  and  millions  of  departed  spirits  are  assort- 
ing the  bodies,  and  then  reclothing  themselves  in  forms  now  radiant  for  ascension. 

The  earth  begins  to  burn  — the  bonfire  of  a  great  victory.  All  ready  now  for 
the  procession  of  reconstructed  humanity  I  Upward  and  away  !  Christ  leads  and 
all  the  Christian  dead  follow— battalion  after  battalion,  nation  after  nation.  Up, 
up  !  On,  on  !  Forward,  ye  ranks  of  God  Almighty  !  Lift  up  your  heads,  ye 
everlasting  gates,  and  let  the  conquerors  come  in.     Resurrection  !     Resurrection  ! 

And  so  I  twist  all  the  festal  flowers  of  the  churches  of  America  with  all  tlie 
festal  flowers  of  chapels  and  cathedrals  of  all  Christendom  into  one  great  chain, 
and  with  that  chain  I  bind  the  Easter  mornings  of  our  lives  with  the  closing  Easter 
of  the  world's  history — resurrection  !  May  the  God  of  peace  that  brought  again 
from  the  dead  our  Lord  Jesus,  that  great  Shepherd  of  the  sheep,  through  the 
blood  of  the  everlasting  covenant,  make  you  perfect  in  every  good  work  to  do 
His  will  ! 


Jfjig^  % 


\ii^^^%n^^  In  ^i^^i^t^ii^* 


THE  STORY  OF  RUTH,  AND   ITS  APPLICATION. 


HE   time  that   Ruth  and  Naomi  arrived  at  Bethlehem  was 

harvest  time.     It  was  the  custom  when  a  sheaf  fell  from 

a  load  in  the  harvest  field  for  the  reapers  to  refuse  to 

gather  it  up;  that  was  to  be  left  for  the  poor  who  might 

^••^1  vijfsinff  ,.T>^  happen  to  come  along  that  way.     If  there  were  handful s 

^^iWA.   "4l  of  grain  scattered  across  the  field  after  the  main  harvest 

^  had  been  reaped,  instead  of  raking  it,  as  farmers  do  now, 

it  was,  by  the  custom  of  the  land,  left  in  its  place,  so  that 

the  poor,   coming  along  that  way,   might  glean  it  and  get  their  bread.      But, 

you  say: 

"  What  is  the  use  of  all  these  harvest  fields  to  Ruth  and  Naomi?  Naomi  is 
too  old  and  feeble  to  go  out  and  toil  in  the  sun;  and  can  you  expect  that  Ruth, 
the  young  and  the  beautiful,  should  tan  her  cheeks  and  blister  her  hands  in  the 
harvest  field?" 

Boaz  owns  a  large  farm,  and  he  goes  out  to  see  the  reapers  gather  in  the 
grain.  Coming  there,  right  behind  the  swarthy  sun-browned  reapers,  he  beholds 
a  beautiful  woman  gleaning — a  woman  more  fit  to  bend  to  a  harp  or  sit  upon  a 
throne  than  to  stoop  among  the  shea\-es.     Ah,  that  was  an  eventful  day  ! 

It  was  love  at  first  sight.  Boaz  forms  an  attachment  for  the  womanly 
gleaner — an  attachment  full  of  undying  interest  to  the  Church  of  God  in  all  ages; 
while  Ruth,  with  an  ephah,  or  nearly  a  bushel  of  barley,  goes  home  to  Naomi  to 
tell  her  the  successes  and  adventures  of  the  day.  That  Ruth,  who  left  her  nati\-e 
land  of  Moab  in  darkness,  and  labored  in  the  heat  of  harvest  time,  through  an 
undying  affection  for  her  mother-in-law,  in  the  field  of  Boaz,  is  affianced  to  one  of 
the  best  families  in  Judah,  and  becomes  in  after-time  the  ancestress  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Lord  of  glory.  Out  of  so  dark  a  night  did  there  ever  dawn  so  bright 
a  morning  ? 

I  learn,  in  the  first  place,  from  this  subject,  how  trouble  develops  character. 
It  was  bereavement,  poverty  and  exile  that  developed,  illustrated  and  announced 
to  all  ages  the  sublimity  of  Ruth's  character.  That  is  a  very  unfortunate  man 
who  has  no  trouble.     It  was  sorrow  that  made  John  Bunyan  the  better  dreamer, 


6o  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

and  Dr.  Young  the  better  poet,  and  O'Connell  the  better  orator,  and  Bishop  Hall 
the  better  preacher,  and  Havelock  the  better  soldier,  and  Kitto  the  better  encyclo- 
paedist, and  Ruth  the  better  daughter-in-law. 

THE  SWEET   EFFECTS  OF  SORROW. 

I  once  asked  an  aged  man  in  regard  to  his  pastor,  who  was  a  ver^-  brilliant 
man;  "  Why  is  it  that  your  pastor,  so  very  brilliant,  seems  to  have  so  little  heart 
and  tenderness  in  his  sermons?" 

"  Well,"  he  replied,  "  the  reason  is  our  pastor  has  never  had  any  trouble. 
When  misfortune  comes  upon  him,  his  style  will  be  different." 

After  a  while  the  Lord  took  a  child  out  of  that  pastor's  house;  and  though 
the  preacher  was  just  as  brilliant  as  he  was  before,  oh,  the  warmth,- the  tender- 
ness of  his  discourses.  The  fact  is  that  trouble  is  a  great  educator.  You  see 
sometimes  a  musician  sit  down  at  an  instrument,  and  his  execution  is  cold  and 
formal  and  unfeeling.  The  reason  is  that  all  his  life  he  has  been  prospered.  But 
let  misfortune  or  bereavement  come  to  that  man,  and  he  sits  down  at  an  instru- 
ment, and  you  discover  the  pathos  in  the  first  sweep  of  the  keys. 

Misfortune  and  trials  are  great  educators.  A  young  doctor  comes  into  a  sick- 
room where  there  is  a  dying  child.  Perhaps  he  is  very  rough  in  his  prescription, 
and  very  rough  in  his  manner,  and  rough  in  the  feeling  of  the  pulse,  and  rough  in 
his  answer  to  the  mother's  anxious  question;  but  years  roll  on  and  there  has  been 
one  dead  in  his  own  house;  and  now  he  comes  into  the  sick-room,  and  with  tearful 
eye  he  looks  at  the  dying  child,  and  says:  "Oh,  how  this  reminds  me  of  my 
Charlie  !"  Trouble,  the  great  educator.  Sorrow,  I  see  its  touch  in  the  grandest 
painting;  I  hear  its  tremor  in  the  sweetest  song;  I  feel  its  power  in  the  mightiest 
argument. 

Grecian  mythology  said  that  the  fountain  of  Hippocrene  was  struck  out  by 
the  foot  of  the  winged  horse  Pegasus.  I  have  often  noticed  in  life  that  the 
brightest  and  most  beautiful  fountains  of  Christian  comfort  and  spiritual  life  have 
been  struck  out  by  the  iron-shod  hoof  of  disaster  and  calamity.  I  see  Daniel's 
courage  best  by  the  flash  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  furnace.  I  see  Paul's  prowess  best 
when  I  find  him  on  the  foundering  ship  under  the  glare  of  the  lightning  in  the 
breakers  of  the  Melita.  God  crowns  His  children  amid  the  howling  of  wild  beasts 
and  the  chopping  of  blood-splashed  guillotine  and  the  crackling  fires  of  martyr- 
dom. It  took  the  persecutions  of  Marcus  Aurelius  to  develop  Polycarp  and  Justin 
Martyr.  It  took  the  world's  anathema  to  develop  Martin  Luther.  It  took  all  the 
hostilities  against  the  Scotch  Covenanters  and  the  fury  of  Lord  Claverhouse  to 
develop  James  Renwick,  and  Andrew  Melville,  and  Hugh  McKail,  the  glorious 
martyrs  of  Scotch  history.     It  took  the  stormy  sea,  and  the  December  blast,  and 


SAD  MEMORIES. 


l6i) 


62  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFK. 

the  desolate  New  England  coast,  and  the  war-whoop  of  savages,  to  show  forth  the 
prowess  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 

When  amid  the  storms  they  sang, 

And  the  stars  heard,  and  the  sea  : 
And  the  sounding  aisles  of  the  dim  wood 

Rang  to  the  anthems  of  the  free. 

It  took  all  our  pa.st  national  di.stresses  to  lift  up  our  nation  on  that  high  career 
where  it  will  march  along  after  the  foreign  aristocracies  that  have  mocked,  and 
the  tyrannies  that  have  jeered,  shall  be  swept  down  under  the  omnipotent  wrath 
of  God,  who  hates  despotism,  and  who,  by  the  strength  of  His  own  right  arm, 
will  make  all  men  free.  And  so  it  is  individually,  and  in  the  family,  and  in  the 
church,  and  in  the  world,  that  through  darkness  and  storm  and  trouble  men, 
women,  churches,  nations  are  developed. 

THE  ROYALTY  OF    FRIENDSHIP. 

I  also  see  in  the  example  of  Ruth  the  beauty  of  unfaltering  friendship.  I 
suppose  there  were  plenty  of  friends  for  Naomi  while  she  was  in  prosperity,  but 
of  all  her  acquaintances  how  many  were  willing  to  trudge  off  with  her  toward 
Judah  when  she  had  to  make  that  lonely  journey  ?  One — the  heroine  Ruth,  the 
devoted.  I  suppose  when  Naomi's  husband  was  living,  and  they  had  plenty  of 
money,  and  all  things  went  well,  they  had  a  great  many  callers,  but  I  suppose 
that  after  her  husband  died,  and  her  property  went,  atid  she  got  old  and  poor,  she 
was  not  trotibled  very  much  with  callers.  All  the  birds  that  sung  in  the  bower 
while  the  sun  shone  have  gone  to  their  nests  now  the  night  has  fallen. 

Oh,  these  beautiful  sunflowers  that  spread  out  their  colors  in  the  morning 
hour,  but  are  always  asleep  when  the  sun  is  going  down  !  Job  had  plenty  of 
friends  when  he  was  the  richest  man  in  Uz;  but  when  his  property  went  and 
the  trials  came,  then  there  were  none  so  much  pestered  as  Eliphaz,  the  Temanite, 
and  Bildad,  the  vShuhite,  and  Zophar,  the  Naamathite. 

Eife  often  .seems  to  be  a  mere  game,  where  the  successful  player  pulls  down  all 
the  other  men  into  his  own  lap.  Eet  suspicions  arise  about  a  man's  character,  and 
he  becomes  like  a  bank  in  a  panic,  and  all  the  imputations  rush  on  him  and  break 
down  in  a  day  that  character  which  in  due  time  would  have  had  strength  to 
defend  itself.  There  are  reputations  that  have  been  half  a  century  in  Iniilding, 
which  go  down  under  some  moral  expo.sure  as  a  vast  temple  is  consinned  by  the 
touch  of  a  sulphurous  match. 

In  this  world,  .so  full  of  heartle.ssne.ss  and  liypocri.sy,  how  thrilling  it  is  to 
find  .some  friend  as  faithful  in  days  of  adversity  as  in  days  of  prosperity  !  David 
had  such  a  friend  in  Httshai:  the  Jews  had  .such  a  friend  in  Mordecai,  who  never 


64  THiv  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

forgot  their  cause;  Paul  had  such  a  friend  in  Onesiphorus,  who  visited  him  in 
jail;  Christ  had  such  a  friend  \n  the  Marys,  who  adhered  to  Him  on  the  cross; 
Naomi  had  such  a  one  in  Ruth,  who  cried  out:  "  Entreat  me  not  to  leave  thee;  or 
to  return  from  following  after  thee;  for  whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go;  and  where 
thou  lodgest,  I  will  lodge;  thy  people  shall  be  my  people,  and  thy  God  my  God; 
where  thou  diest,  will  I  die,  and  there  wuU  I  be  buried:  the  Lord  do  so  to  me,  and 
more  also,  if  aught  but  death  part  thee  and  me." 

DARKNESS  AND  DAWN. 

Again  I  learn  from  this  subject  that  paths  which  open  in  hardship  and  dark- 
ness often  come  out  in  places  of  joy.  When  Ruth  started  from  Moab  toward 
Jerusalem,  to  go  along  with  her  mother-in-law,  I  suppose  the  people  said: 

"  Oh,  what  a  foolish  creature  to  go  awa}^  from  her  father's  house,  to  go  off 
with  a  poor  old  woman  toward  the  land  of  Judah  !  They  w^on't  live  to  get  across 
the  desert.  They  will  be  drowned  in  the  sea,  or  the  jackals  of  the  wilderness  will 
destroy  them." 

It  was  a  very  dark  morning  when  Ruth  started  off  with  Naomi;  but  behold 
her  in  the  harvest  field  of  Boaz,  to  be  affianced  to  one  of  the  lords  of  the  land,  and 
become  one  of  the  grandmothers  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Lord  of  Glor}'.  And  so  it 
often  is  that  a  path  which  starts  very  darkly  ends  very  brightly. 

When  you  started  out  for  heaven,  oh,  how  dark  was  the  hour  of  conviction — 
how  Sinai  thundered,  and  devils  tormented,  and  the  darkness  thickened  !  All  the 
sins  of  your  life  pounced  upon  you,  and  it  was  the  darkest  hour  you  ever  saw 
when  you  first  found  out  your  sins.  After  a  while  you  went  into  the  har\-est-field 
of  God's  mercy;  you  began  to  glean  in  the  fields  of  divine  promise,  and  you  had 
more  sheaves  than  you  could  carry,  as  the  voice  of  God  addressed  you,  saying: 
"Blessed  is  the  man  whose  transgressions  are  forgiven  and  whose  sins  are 
covered." 

So,  very  often,  in  our  worldly  business  or  in  our  spiritual  career,  we  start  off 
on  a  very  dark  path.  We  must  go.  The  flesh  may  shrink  back,  but  there  is  a 
voice  within,  or  a  voice  from  above,  saying:  "You  must  go,"  and  we  have  to 
drink  the  gall,  and  we  have  to  carry  the  cross,  and  we  have  to  traverse  the  desert, 
and  we  are  pounded  and  flailed  with  misrepresentation  and  abuse,  and  we  have  to 
urge  our  way  through  10,000  obstacles  that  must  be  slain  by  our  own  right  arm. 
We  have  to  ford  the  river,  we  have  to  climb  the  mountain,  we  have  to  storm  the 
castle;  but,  blessed  be  God,  the  day  of  rest  and  reward  will  come.  On  the  tip-top 
ot  the  captured  battlements  we  will  shout  the  victory;  if  not  in  this  world,  then 
in  that  world  where  there  is  no  gall  to  drink,  no  burdens  to  carry,  no  battles  to 
fight.  How  do  I  know  it  ?  Know  it  !  I  know  it  because  God  says  so:  "They 
shall  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any  more;  neither  shall  the  sun  light  on 


(65) 


66 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


them,  nor  any  heat;  for  the  Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  lead 
theni  to  living  fountains  of  waters:  and  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their 
eyes. ' ' 

It  was  very  hard  for  Noah  to  endure  the  scofhng  of  the  people  in  his  day.  while 
he  was  trying  to  build  the  ark,  and  was  every  morning  quizzed  about  his  old  boat 

that    would    never 


be  of  any  practical 
use;  but  when  the 
deluge  came,  and 
the  tops  of  the 
mountains  disap- 
peared like  the 
backs  of  sea  mon- 
sters, and  the  ele- 
ments, lashed  up  in 
fury,  clapped  their 
hands  over  a 
drowned  world, 
then  Noah  in  the 
ark  rejoiced  in  his 
own  safety  and  in 
the  safety  of  his 
family,  and  looked 
out  on  the  wreck  of 
a  ruined  earth. 

Christ,  hound- 
ed of  persecutors, 
denied  a  pillow, 
worse  maltreated 
than  the  thieves  on 
either  side  of  the 
cross,  human  hate 
smacking  its  lips 
in  satisfaction  after 
it  had  been  draining 
His  last  drop  of 
blood,  the  sheeted 
dead  bursting  from 
the  sepulchres  at 
His  crucifixion. 


THE  CHRISTIAN   MARTYR. 

In  the  early  ajje  of  the  Church,  and  particularly  during  the  reign  of  Nero,  the 
Christians  of  Rome  were  thrown  into  an  .\nipliithcatrc  with  hniiKry  tigers  and 
lions,  to  be  devoured,  while  others  were  subjected  to  even  a  more  horrible  fate. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  67 

Tell  me,  O  Gethsemane  and  Golgotha  !  were  there  ever  darker  times  than  those  ? 
Like  the  booming  of  the  midnight  sea  against  the  rock,  the  surges  of  Christ's 
anguish  beat  against  the  gates  of  eternity,  to  be  echoed  back  by  all  the  thrones  of 
heaven  and  all  the  dungeons  of  hell.  But  the  day  of  reward  comes  for  Christ; 
all  the  pomp  and  dominion  of  this  world  are  to  be  hung  on  His  throne;  uncrowned 
heads  are  to  bow  before  Him  on  whose  head  are  many  crowns,  and  all  the  celes- 
tial worship  is  to  come  up  at  His  feet  like  the  humming  of  the  forest,  like  the 
rushing  of  the  waters,  like  the  thundering  of  the  seas,  while  all  heaven  rising 
on  their  thrones  beat  time  with  their  sceptres:  "  Hallelujah,  for  the  Lord  God 
omnipotent  reigneth  !  Hallelujah,  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  have  become  the 
kingdoms  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ! ' ' 

LITTLE  INCIDENTS  THAT  CHANGE  LIVES. 

I  learn  from  my  subject  that  events  which  seem  to  be  most  insignificant  may 
be  momentous.  Can  you  imagine  anything  more  unimportant  than  the  coming 
of  a  poor  woman  from  Moab  to  Judah  ?  Can  you  imagine  anything  more  trivial 
than  the  fact  that  this  Ruth  just  happened  to  alight — as  they  say — just  happened 
to  alight  on  this  field  of  Boaz  ?  Yet  all  ages,  all  generations,  have  an  interest  in 
the  fact  that  she  was  to  become  an  ancestor  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  all 
nations  and  kingdoms  must  look  at  that  one  little  incident  with  a  thrill  of  unspeak- 
able and  eternal  satisfaction.  So  it  is  in  your  history  and  in  mine;  events  that 
you  thought  of  no  importance  at  all  have  been  of  very  great  moment.  That 
casual  conversation,  that  accidental  meeting — you  did  not  think  of  it  again  for  a 
long  w^hile;  but  how  it  changed  all  the  phase  of  your  life  ! 

It  seemed  to  be  of  no  importance  that  Jubal  invented  rude  instruments  of 
music,  calling  them  harp  and  organ,  but  they  were  the  introduction  of  all  the 
world's  minstrelsy;  and  as  you  hear  the  vibration  of  a  stringed  instrument,  even 
after  the  fingers  have  been  taken  away  from  it,  so  all  music  now  of  lute  and  drum 
and  cornet  is  only  the  long-continued  strains  of  Jubal's  harp  and  Jubal's  organ. 
It  seemed  to  be  a  matter  of  very  little  importance  that  Tubal-cain  learned  the  use 
of  copper  and  iron,  but  that  rude  foundry  of  ancient  days  has  its  echo  in  the  rattle 
of  Birmingham  machinery'  and  the  roar  and  bang  of  factories  on  the  Merrimac. 

It  seemed  to  be  a  matter  of  no  importance  that  Luther  found  a  Bible  in  a 
monaster}-;  but  as  he  opened  that  Bible,  and  the  brass-bound  lids  fell  back,  they 
jarred  everything,  from  the  Vatican  to  the  furthest  convent  in  Germany,  and  the 
rustling  of  the  wormed  leaves  was  the  sound  of  the  wings  of  the  angel  of  the 
Reformation.  It  seemed  to  be  a  matter  of  no  importance  that  a  woman,  whose 
name  has  been  forgotten,  dropped  a  tract  in  the  way  of  a  ver^^  bad  man  by  the 
name  of  Richard  Baxter.  He  picked  up  the  tract  and  read  it,  and  it  was  the 
means  of  his  salvation. 


68  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

In  after-days  that  man  wrote  a  book,  called  "  The  Call  to  the  Unconverted," 
that  was  the  means  of  bringing  a  multitude  to  God,  among  others  Philip  Dodd- 
ridge. Philip  Doddridge  wrote  a  book,  called  "  The  Rise  and  Progress  of  Reli- 
gion," which  has  brought  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  into  the  kingdom  of 
God,  and  among  others  the  great  Wilberforce.  Wilberforce  wrote  a  book,  called 
"  A  Practical  View  of  Christianity,"  which  was  the  means  of  bringing  a  great 
multitude  to  Christ,  among  others  Leigh  Richmond.  Leigh  Richmond  wrote  a 
tract,  called  "The  Dairyman's  Daughter,"  which  has  been  the  means  of  the 
salvation  of  uncounted  multitudes.  And  that  tide  of  influence  started  from  the 
fact  that  one  Christian  woman  dropped  a  Christian  tract  in  the  way  of  Richard 
Baxter — that  tide  of  influence  rolling  on  through  Richard  Baxter,  through  Philip 
Doddridge,  through  the  great  Wilberforce,  through  Leigh  Richmond,  on,  on,  on, 
forever,  forever.  So  the  insignificant  events  of  this  world  seem,  after  all,  to  be 
most  momentous.  The  fact  that  you  came  up  that  street  or  this  street  seemed  to 
be  of  no  importance  to  you,  and  the  fact  that  you  went  inside  of  some  church 
may  seem  to  be  a  matter  of  very  great  insignificance  to  you,  but  you  will  find  it 
the  turning  point  in  your  history. 

FEMALE  INDUSTRY. 

I  see  in  my  subject  an  illustration  of  the  beauty  of  female  industn,'.  Behold 
Ruth  toiling  in  the  harvest-field  under  the  hot  sun,  or  at  noon  taking  plain  bread 
with  the  reapers,  or  eating  the  parched  corn  which  Boaz  handed  to  her.  The 
customs  of  society,  of  course,  have  changed,  and  without  the  hardships  and 
exposure  to  which  Ruth  was  subjected,  every  intelligent  woman  will  find  some- 
thing to  do. 

I  know  there  is  a  sickl}'  .sentimentality  on  this  subject.  In  some  families 
there  are  persons  of  no  practical  service  to  the  household  or  community;  and 
though  there  are  so  many  woes  all  around  about  them  in  the  world,  they  spend 
their  time  languishing  over  a  new  pattern,  or  bursting  into  tears  at  midnight  over 
the  story  of  some  lover  who  shot  himself  They  would  not  deign  to  look  at  Ruth 
carrying  back  the  barle}^  on  her  way  home  to  her  mother-in-law,  Naomi.  All 
this  fastidiousness  may  seem  to  do  very  well  while  they  are  under  the  shelter  of 
their  father's  hou.se;  but  when  the  sharp  winter  of  misfortune  comes,  what  of 
these  butterflies  ?  Persons  under  indulgent  parentage  may  get  upon  themselves 
habits  of  indolence;  but  when  they  come  out  into  practical  life  their  souls  will 
recoil  with  disgust  and  chagrin.  They  will  feel  in  their  hearts  what  the  poet  so 
severely  satirized  when  he  said: 

Folks  arc  so  awkward,  things  so  impolite, 
They're  elegantly  pained  from  morning  till  night. 


THE   BREADWINNER 


70  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Through  that  gate  of  indolence  how  nian}^  men  and  women  have  marched, 
useless  on  earth,  to  a  destroyed  eternity  !     Spinola  said  to  Sir  Horace  Vere: 

"  Of  what  did  your  brother  die  ?" 

' '  Of  having  nothing  to  do, ' '  was  the  answer. 

"  Ah,"  said  Spinola,  "  that's  enough  to  kill  any  general  of  us." 

Oh  !  can  it  be  possible  in  this  world,  where  there  is  so  much  suffering  to  be 
alleviated,  so  much  darkness  to  be  enlightened,  and  so  many  burdens  to  be  carried, 
that  there  is  any  person  who  cannot  find  anything  tc  do  ? 

Mme.  De  Stael  did  a  world  of  work  in  her  time  and,  one  day,  while  she  was 
seated  amid  instruments  of  music,  all  of  which  she  had  mastered,  and  amid  manu- 
script books  which  she  had  written,  some  one  said  to  her: 

' '  How  do  you  find  time  to  attend  to  all  these  things  ?' ' 

"  Oh,"  she  replied,  "  these  are  not  the  things  I  am  proud  of.  My  chief  boast 
is  in  the  fact  that  I  have  seventeen  trades,  by  any  one  of  which  I  could  make  a 
livelihood  if  necessary." 

Elihu  Burritt  learned  many  things  while  toiling  in  a  blacksmith's  shop. 
Abercrombie,  the  world-renowned  philosopher,  was  a  philosopher  in  Scotland, 
and  he  got  his  philosophy,  or  the  chief  part  of  it,  while,  as  a  ph^-sician,  he  was 
waiting  for  the  door  of  the  sick-room  to  open.  Yet  how  man}^  there  are  in  this 
day  who  say  they  are  so  busy  they  have  no  time  for  mental  or  spiritual  improve- 
ment; the  great  duties  of  life  cross  the  field  like  strong  reapers  and  earn,-  off  all 
the  hours,  and  there  is  only  here  and  there  a  fragment  left  that  is  not  worth  glean- 
ing. Ah,  my  friends,  j'ou  could  go  into  the  busiest  da}-  and  busiest  week  of  your 
life  and  find  golden  opportunities,  which,  gathered,  might  at  least  make  a  whole 
sheaf  for  the  Lord's  garner.  It  is  the  stray  opportunities  and  the  stray  privileges 
which,  taken  up  and  bound  together  and  beaten  out,  will  at  last  fill  you  with 
abounding  joy. 

There  are  a  tew  moments  left  w^orth  the  gleaning,  Now^  Ruth,  to  the  field  ! 
May  each  one  have  a  measure  full  and  running  over  !  O  3'ou  gleaners,  to  the 
field  !  And  if  there  be  in  your  household  an  aged  one  or  a  sick  relative  that  is 
not  strong  enough  to  come  forth  and  toil  in  this  field,  then  let  Ruth  take  home  to 
feeble  Naomi  this  sheaf  of  gleaning:  "  He  that  goeth  forth  and  weepeth,  bear- 
ing precious  seed,  shall  doubtless  come  again  with  rejoicing,  bringing  his  sheaves 
with  him."     May  the  Lord  God  of  Ruth  and  Naomi  be  our  portion  forever  ! 


©I^je  33^1wje;  crt  ffi^rje^bjontjeni^. 


SORROW  SENT  TO  QUICKEN    OUR  APPRECIATION. 

[he  brigands  of  Jerusalem  had  done  their  work.  It  was 
almost  sundown,  and  Jesus  was  dying.  Persons  in  cruci- 
fixion often  lingered  on  from  day  to  day— crying,  begging, 
cursing;  but  Christ  had  been  exhausted  by  years  of  mal- 
treatment. Pillowless,  poorly  fed,  flogged — as  bent  over 
and  tied  to  a  low  post.  His  bare  back  w^as  inflamed  with  the 
scourges,  intersticed  with  pieces  of  lead  and  bone — and  now  for 
whole  hours  the  weight  of  His  body  hung  on  delicate  tendons, 
and,  according  to  custom,  a  violent  stroke  under  the  arm-pits  had 
been  given  by  the  executioner.  Dizzy,  swooning,  nauseated, 
feverish — a  world  of  agony  is  compressed  in  the  two  words,  "  I 
thirst  !"  O  skies  of  Judea,  let  a  drop  of  rain  strike  His  burning 
tongue.  O  world,  with  rolling  rivers  and  sparkling  lakes,  and 
sparkling  fountains,  give  Jesus  something  to  drink.  If  there  is 
any  pity  in  earth  or  heaven,  or  hell,  let  it  now  be  demonstrated 
in  behalf  of  this  royal  sufferer.  The  wealthy  women  of  Jerusa- 
lem used  to  have  a  fund  of  money  with  which  they  provided  wine  for  those  people 
who  died  in  crucifixion — a  powerful  opiate  to  deaden  the  pain;  but  Christ  would 
not  take  it.  He  wanted  to  die  sober,  and  so  He  refused  the  wine.  But  aftenvard 
they  go  to  a  cup  of  vinegar  and  soak  a  sponge  in  it,  and  put  it  on  a  stick  of 
hyssop,  and  then  press  it  against  the  hot  lips  of  Christ.  You  say  the  wine  was  an 
anaesthetic,  and  intended  to  relieve  or  deaden  the  pain.  But  the  vinegar  was  an 
insult.  I  am  disposed  to  adopt  the  theory  of  the  old  English  commentators,  who 
believed  that,  instead  of  its  being  an  opiate  to  soothe,  it  was  vinegar  to  insult. 
Malaga  and  Burgundy  for  Grand  Dukes  and  Duchesses,  and  costly  wines  from 
royal  vats  for  bloated  imperialists;  but  stinging  acids  for  a  dying  Christ. 


BITTER   SWEET. 

In  some  lives  the  saccharine  seems  to  predominate.  Life  is  sunshine  on  a 
bank  of  flowers.  A  thousand  hands  to  clap  approval  !  In  December  or  in  Jan- 
uary, looking  across  their  table,  they  see  all  their  family  present.  Health  rubi- 
cund.    Skies  flamboyant.     Days  resilient.     But  in  a  great  many  cases  there  are 

(71) 


72 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


not  so  many  sugars  as  acids.  The  annoyances,  and  the  vexations,  and  the  disap- 
pointments of  life  overpower  the  successes.  There  is  a  gravel  in  almost  every 
shoe.  An  Arabian  legend  says  that  there  was  a  worm  in  Solomon's  staff,  gnaw- 
ing its  strength 
away ;  and  there 
is  a  weak  spot 
in  ever>^  earthly 
support  that  a 
man  leans  on. 
King  George,  of 
England,  forgot 
all  the  grand- 
eurs of  his 
throne  because, 
one  day,  in  an 
interview,  Beau 
Brummel  called 
him  b}'  his  first 
name,  and  ad- 
dressed him  as  a 
servant,  cr\-ing: 
"  George,  ring 
the  bell!"  Miss 
Landon,  hon- 
ored all  the 
world  over  for 
her  poetical  gen- 
ius, is  so  worried 
over  the  evil 
reports  set  afloat 
regarding  her 
that  she  is  found 
dead,  with  an 
empty  bottle  of 
prussic  acid  in 
her  hand.  Gold- 
smith said  that 
his    life    was    a 

wretched  being,  and  all  that  want  and  contempt  could  bring  to  it  had  been  brought, 
and  cries  out:    "What,  then,  is  there  formidable  in  a  jail!"     Correggio's  fine 


-1! 

DEAD    1     -:.    v'LK   TRANSi;.  1-  I.--]    '".- 

{From  a  handkerohief  painted  by  Gabriel  Max.) 

This   picture   has  been   regarded  by  many  simple   people   as  being  of  miraculous 

origin,  a  superstition  strengthened  by  a  trick  of  the  artist,  who  has  so  painted  the  eyes 

that  when  examined  steadily  for  a   few  moments  they  seem  to  open  and  are  then  seen 

plainly  to  be  looking  upward. 


74  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

painting  is  hung  up  for  a  tavern  sign.  Hogarth  cannot  sell  his  best  painting, 
except  through  a  raffle.  Andrew  Delsart  makes  the  great  fresco  in  the  Church 
of  the  Annunciation,  at  Florence,  and  gets  for  pay  a  sack  of  corn;  and  there  are 
annoyance  and  vexations  in  high  places  as  well  as  in  low  places,  showing  that  in 
a  great  many  lives  the  sours  are  greater  than  the  sweets. 

It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  a  man  who  has  always  been  well  can  sympathize 
with  those  who  are  sick;  or  that  one  who  has  always  been  honored  can  appreciate 
the  sorrows  of  those  who  are  despised;  or  that  one  who  has  been  born  to  a  great 
fortune  can  understand  the  distress  and  the  straits  of  those  who  are  destitute. 
The  fact  that  Christ  Himself  took  the  vinegar  makes  Him  able  to  sympathize 
to-day  and  forever  with  all  those  whose  cup  is  filled  with  sharp  acids  of  this  life. 

In  the  first  place  there  is  the  sourness  of  betrayal.  The  treachery  of  Judas 
hurt  Christ's  feelings  more  than  all  the  friendship  of  His  disciples  did  Him  good. 
You  have  had  many  friends;  but  there  was  one  friend  upon  whom  you  put  espe- 
cial stress.  You  feasted  him.  You  loaned  him  money.  You  befriended  him  in 
the  dark  passes  of  life,  when  he  especially  needed  a  friend.  Afterward,  he  turned 
upon  you,  and  he  took  advantage  of  your  former  intimacies.  He  wrote  against 
you.  He  talked  against  you.  He  microscopized  your  faults.  He  flung  contempt 
at  you  when  you  ought  to  have  received  nothing  but  gratitude.  At  first  you  could 
not  sleep  at  nights.  Then  you  went  about  wnth  a  sense  of  having  been  stung. 
That  difficulty  will  never  be  healed,  for,  though  mutual  friends  may  arbitrate  in 
the  matter  until  you  shall  shake  hands,  the  old  cordiality  will  never  come  back. 
Now,  I  commend  to  all  such  the  sympathy  of  a  betra}-ed  Christ.  Why,  they  sold 
Him  for  less  than  our  twenty  dollars.  They  all  forsook  Him  and  fled.  They  cut 
Him  to  the  quick.     He  drank  that  cup  of  betrayal  to  the  dregs. 

There  is  also  the  sourness  of  pain.  There  are  some  of  you  w^ho  have  not 
seen  a  well  day  for  many  years.  By  keeping  out  of  draughts,  and  by  carefully 
studying  dietetics,  you  continue  to  this  time;  but  oh,  the  headaches,  and  the  side- 
aches,  and  the  backaches,  and  the  heartaches  which  have  been  your  accompaniment 
all  the  way  through  !  You  have  struggled  under  a  heavy  mortgage  of  physical 
disabilities;  and  instead  of  the  placidity  that  once  characterized  you,  it  is  now  only 
with  great  effort  that  you  keep  away  from  irritability  and  sharp  retort.  Difficul- 
ties of  respiration,  of  digestion,  of  locomotion,  make  up  the  great  obstacle  in  your 
life,  and  you  tug  and  sweat  along  the  pathway,  and  wonder  when  the  exhaustion 
will  end.  My  friends,  the  brightest  crowns  in  heaven  will  not  be  given  to  those 
who,  in  stirrups,  dashed  to  the  cavalry  charge,  while  the  General  applauded,  and 
the  sound  of  clashing  sabres  rang  through  the  land ;  but  the  brightest  crowns  in 
heaven,  I  believe,  will  be  given  to  those  who  trudged  on  amid  chronic  ailments 
which  unnerved  their  strength,  yet  all  the  time  maintaining  their  faith  in  God. 
It  is  comparatively  easy  to  fight  in  a  regiment  of  one  thousand  men,  charging  up 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  -         75 

the  parapets  to  the  sound  of  martial  music;  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  endure  when  no 
one  but  the  nurse  and  the  doctor  are  the  witnesses  of  the  Christian  fortitude. 
Besides  that  you  never  had  any  pains  worse  than  Christ's.  The  sharpness  that 
stung  through  His  brain,  through  His  hands,  through  His  feet,  through  His 
heart,  were  as  great  as  yours  certainly.  He  was  as  sick  and  as  weary.  Not  a 
nerve,  or  muscle,  or  ligament  escaped.  All  the  pangs  of  all  the  nations  of  all  the 
ages  compressed  into  one  sour  cup. 

THE  VANiTY  OF  WEALTH  AND  GENIUS. 

There  is  also  the  sourness  of  poverty.  Your  income  does  not  meet  j'our  out- 
goings, and  that  always  gives  an  honest  man  anxiety.  There  is  no  sign  of  desti- 
tution about  you — pleasant  appearance  and  a  cheerful  home  for  you;  but  God  only 
knows  what  a  time  you  have  had  to  manage  3'our  private  finances.  Just  as  the 
bills  run  up  the  wages  seem  to  run  down.  But  you  are  not  the  only  one  who  has 
not  been  paid  for  hard  work.  The  great  Wilkie  sold  his  celebrated  piece,  "  The 
Blind  Fiddler;"  for  fifty  guineas,  although  afterwards  it  brought  its  thousands. 
The  world  hangs  in  admiration  over  the  sketch  of  Gainsborough,  yet  that  very 
sketch  hung  for  years  in  the  shop-window  because  there  was  not  any  purchaser. 
Oliver  Goldsmith  sold  his  "Vicar  of  Wakefield"  for  a  few  pounds,  in  order  to 
keep  the  bailiff  out  of  his  door;  and  the  vast  majority  of  men  in  all  occupations 
and  professions  are  not  fully  paid  for  their  work.  You  may  say  nothing,  but  life 
to  3'ou  is  a  hard  push;  and  when  you  sit  down  with  your  wife  and  talk  over  the 
expenses,  you  both  rise  up  discouraged.  You  abridge  here,  and  you  abridge 
there,  and  you  get  things  snug  for  smooth  sailing,  and  lo  !  suddenly  there  is  a 
large  doctor's  bill  to  pay,  or  j^ou  have  lost  your  pocketbook,  or  some  creditor  has 
failed,  and  you  are  thrown  abeam  end.  Well,  brother,  you  are  in  glorious  com- 
pany. Christ  owned  not  the  house  in  which  He  stopped,  or  the  colt  on  which  He 
rode,  or  the  boat  in  which  He  sailed.  He  lived  in  a  borrowed  house;  He  was 
buried  in  a  borrowed  grave.  Exposed  to  all  kinds  of  weather,  yet  He  had  only 
one  suit  of  clothes.  He  breakfasted  in  the  morning,  and  no  one  could  possibly 
tell  where  He  could  get  anything  to  eat  before  night.  He  would  have  been  pro- 
nounced a  financial  failure.  He  had  to  perform  a  miracle  to  get  money  to  pay  a 
tax  bill.  Not  a  dollar  did  He  own.  Privation  of  domesticity;  privation  of 
nutritious  food;  privation  of  a  comfortable  couch  on  which  to  sleep;  privation  of 
all  worldly  resources.  The  kings  of  the  earth  had  chased  chalices  out  of  which 
to  drink,  but  Christ  had  nothing  but  a  plain  cup  set  before  Him,  and  it  was  very 
sharp,  and  it  was  very  sour. 

There  also  is  the  sourness  of  bereavement.  There  were  years  that  passed 
along  before  your  family  circle  was  invaded  by  death;  but  the  moment  the 
charmed  circle  was  broken  everything  seemed  to  dissolve.     Hardly  have  you  put 


76 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


the  black  apparel  in  the  wardrobe  before  you  have  again  to  take  it  out.  Great 
and  rapid  changes  in  your  family  record.  You  got  the  house  and  rejoiced  in  it, 
but  the  charm  was  gone  as  soon  as  the  crape  hung  on   the  door-bell.     The  one 


THE  angel's  whisper. 


upon  whom  you  most  depended  was  taken  away  from  you.  A  cold  marble  slab 
lies  on  your  heart  to-day.  Once,  as  the  children  romped  through  the  house,  you 
put  your  hand  over  your  aching  head  and  said:  "  Oh,  if  I  could  only  have  it  still." 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  77 

Oh,  it  is  too  still  now.  You  lost  3'our  patience  when  the  tops  and  the  strings  and 
the  shells  were  left  amid  the  floor,  but  oh,  you  would  be  willing  to  have  the 
trinkets  scattered  all  over  the  floor  again,  if  they  were  scattered  by  the  same  hands. 
With  what  a  ruthless  plowshare  bereavement  rips  up  the  heart.  But  Jesus  knows 
all  about  that.  You  cannot  tell  Him  anything  in  regard  to  bereavement.  He  had 
only  a  few  friends,  and  when  He  lost  one  it  brought  tears  to  His  eyes.  Lazarus 
had  often  entertained  Him  at  his  house.  Now  Lazarus  is  dead  and  buried,  and 
Christ  breaks  down  with  emotion — the  convulsion  of  grief  shuddering  through  all 
the  ages  of  bereavement.  Christ  knows  what  it  is  to  go  through  the  house  miss- 
ing a  familiar  inmate.  Christ  knows  what  it  is  to  see  an  unoccupied  plate  at  the 
table.  Were  there  not  four  of  them — Mary,  and  Martha,  and  Christ,  and  Laza- 
rus? Four  of  them.  But  where  is  Lazarus?  Lonely  and  afflicted  Christ,  His 
great  loving  eyes  filled  with  tears,  which  drop  from  eye  to  cheek,  and  from  cheek 
to  beard,  and  from  beard  to  robe,  and  from  robe  to  floor.  Oh,  yes,  yes,  He  knows 
all  about  the  loneliness  and  the  heartbreak. 

THE  HOUR  OF  DEATH. 

Then  there  is  the  sourness  of  the  death  hour.  Whatever  else  we  may  escape, 
that  acid  sponge  will  be  pressed  to  our  lips.  I  sometimes  have  a  curiosity  to  know 
how  I  will  behave  when  I  come  to  die.  Whether  I  will  be  calm  or  excited; 
whether  I  will  be  filled  with  reminiscences  or  with  anticipation.  I  cannot  sa5\ 
But  come  to  the  point  I  must,  and  you  must.  In  the  six  thousand  years  that  have 
passed,  only  two  persons  have  got  into  the  eternal  world  without  death,  and  I  do 
not  suppose  that  God  is  going  to  send  a  carriage  for  us  with  horses  of  flame,  to 
draw  us  up  the  steps  of  heaven;  but  I  suppose  we  will  have  to  go  like  the  preced- 
ing generations.  An  officer  of  the  future  world  will  knock  at  the  door  of  our 
heart  and  serve  on  us  the  writ  of  ejectment,  and  we  will  have  to  surrender. 
And  we  will  wake  up  after  these  autumnal,  and  wintry,  and  vernal,  and  summery 
glories  have  vanished  from  our  vision — we  will  wake  up  into  a  realm  which  has 
only  one  season,  and  that  the  season  of  everlasting  love.  But  3^ou  say:  "  I  don't 
want  to  break  out  from  my  present  associations.  It  is  so  chilly  and  so  damp  to  go 
down  the  stairs  of  that  vault.  I  don't  want  anything  drawn  so  tightly  over  my 
eyes.  If  there  were  only  some  way  of  breaking  through  the  partition  between 
worlds  without  tearing  this  body  all  to  shreds.  I  wonder  if  the  surgeons  and  the 
doctors  cannot  compound  a  mixture  bj^  which  this  body  and  soul  can  all  the  time 
be  kept  together.     Is  there  no  escape  from  the  separation  ?" 

A  great  many  men  tumble  through  the  gates  of  the  future,  as  it  were,  and  we 
do  not  know  where  they  have  gone,  and  they  only  add  gloom  and  mystery  to  the 
passage;  but  Jesus  Christ  so  mightily  stormed  the  gates  of  that  future  world  that 
they  have  never  since  been  closely  shut.     Christ  knows  what  it  is  to  leave  this 


78  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

world,  of  the  beauty  of  which  He  was  more  appreciative  than  we  ever  could  be. 
He  knows  the  exquisiteness  of  the  phosphoresence  of  the  sea;  He  trod  it.  He 
knows  the  glories  of  the  midnight  heavens  for  they  were  the  spangled  canopv  of 
His  wilderness  pillow.  He  knows  about  the  lilies:  He  twisted  them  into  his  ser- 
mon. He  knows  about  the  fowls  of  the  air:  they  whirred  their  way  through  His 
discourse.  He  knows  about  the  sorrows  of  leaving  this  beautiful  world.  Not  a 
taper  was  kindled  in  the  darkness.  He  died  physicianless.  He  died  in  cold 
sweat  and  dizziness,  and  hemorrhage,  and  agony  that  have  put  him  in  sympathy 
with  all  the  dying.  He  goes  through  Christendom,  and  He  gathers  up  the  stings 
out  of  all  the  death  pillows,  and  He  puts  them  under  His  own  neck  and  head. 
He  gathers  on  His  own  tongue  the  burning  thirsts  of  many  generations.  The 
sponge  is  soaked  in  the  sorrow  of  all  those  who  have  died  in  their  beds  as  well  as 
soaked  in  the  sorrows  of  all  those  who  perished  in  ic}'  or  fiery  martyrdom.  W^hile 
heaven  was  pitying,  and  earth  was  mocking,  and  hell  was  deriding.  He  took  the 
vinegar  ! 

To  all  those  to  whom  life  has  been  an  acerbity — a  dose  they  could  not  swallow, 
a  draught  that  set  their  teeth  on  edge  and  a-rasping — I  bespeak  the  omnipotent 
sympathy  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  sister  of  Herschel,  the  astronomer,  used  to  help 
him  in  his  work.  He  got  all  the  credit;  she  got  none.  She  used  to  spend  much 
of  her  time  polishing  the  telescopes  through  which  he  brought  the  distant  worlds 
nigh,  and  it  is  my  ambition  now,  this  hour,  to  clear  the  lens  of  your  spiritual 
vision,  so  that,  looking  through  the  dark  night  of  your  earthly  troubles,  j'ou  may 
behold  the  glorious  constellation  of  a  Saviour's  mercy  and  a  Saviour's  love.  Omy 
friends  !  do  not  try  to  carry  all  your  ills  alone.  Do  not  put  your  poor  shoulder 
under  the  Apennines  when  the  Almighty  Christ  is  ready  to  lift  up  all  your  bur- 
dens. When  you  have  a  trouble  of  any  kind,  you  rush  this  way,  and  that  way; 
and  you  wonder  what  this  man  will  say  about  it,  and  what  that  man  will  say  about 
it;  and  you  try  this  prescription,  and  that  prescription,  and  the  other  prescription. 
Oh,  why  do  you  not  go  straight  to  the  heart  of  Christ,  knowing  that  for  our  own 
sinning  and  .suffering  race,  He  took  the  vinegar  !  "  Whosoever  will,  let  him  come 
and  take  of  the  water  of  life  freely." 

Yet,  while  I  write  I  am  pained  at  the  thought  that  there  are  people  who  will 
refuse  this  divine  sympathy,  and  they  will  tr\'to  fight  their  own  battles,  and  drink 
their  own  vinegar,  and  carry  their  own  burdens;  and  their  life,  instead  of  being  a 
triumphal  march  from  victory  to  victory,  will  be  a  hobbling-on  from  defeat  to  defeat, 
until  they  make  final  surrender  to  retributive  di.saster.  Oh,  I  wish  I  could  gather 
up  in  mine  arms  all  the  woes  of  men  and  women — all  their  heartaches — all  their 
disappointments — all  their  chagrins — and  just  take  them  right  to  the  feet  of  a 
sympathizing  Jesus. 


PERiSHABi,ENESS. — Painted  by  the  Crown  Princess  of  Germany.  i„^\ 


8o 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


Nana  Sahib,  after  he  had  lost  his  last  battle  in  India,  fell  back  into  the  jungles 
of  Iheri — jungles  so  full  of  malaria  that  no  mortal  can  live  there.  He  carried  with 
him  also  a  ruby  of  great  lustre  and  of  great  value.  He  died  in  those  jungles; 
his  body  was  never  found  and  the  ruby  has  never  yet  been  recovered.  And  I 
fear  that  there  are  some  who  will  fall  back  from  this  subject  into  the  sickening, 
killing  jungles  of  their  sin,  carrying  a  gem  of  infinite  value — a  priceless  soul — to 
be  lost  forever.  Oh,  that  that  ruby  might  flash  in  the  eternal  coronation.  But 
no.  There  are  many,  I  fear,  who  will  turn  away  from  this  offered  merc}'  and 
comfort  and  divine  sympathy,  notwithstanding  that  Christ,  for  all  who  would 
accept  His  grace,  trudged  the  long  way  and  suffered  the  lacerating  thongs  and 
received  in  His  face  the  expectorations  of  the  filthy  mob,  and  for  the  guilty,  and 
the  discouraged,  and  the  discomforted  of  the  race,  took  the  vinegar.  May  God 
Almighty  break  the  infatuation  and  lead  you  out  into  the  strong  hope,  and  the 
good  cheer,  and  the  glorious  sunshine  of  this  triumphant  gospel ! 


THE  DAY  OF  FINAL  REWARD. 

1W^1^'~3'^f'^^iji?'^^^"^  persecutors  used  to  let  out  the  half-starved  lions  to  eat 

\  "^^u^v/V  •  '  '^'^     ^^P    Christians   in    the    Colosseum    at   Rome,   there   is   now 

K<!o'V^^'V^^^/  ^       planted  the  figure  of  a  cross.     And  I  rejoice  to  know  that 

'^".^      the  transverse  piece  of  wood  nailed  to  an  upright  piece  has 

'    /        become  the  symbol,  not  more  of  suffering  than  of  victory. 

"""  It  is  of  Christ  the  Conqueror  that  I  wish  to  speak.     As  a 

■>^|^^<^^A^y  kingly  warrior,   having  subdued  an  empire,   might    divide 

the   palaces,    and   mansions,    and   cities,    and   valleys,    and 

mountains  among  his  officers,  so  Christ  is  going  to  divide  up  all  the  earth  and  all 

the  heavens  among  His  people,  and  you  and  I  will  have  to  take  our  share  if  so  be 

that  we  are  strong  in  faith  and  strong  in  our  Christian  loyalty. 

Do  I  really  mean  all  the  earth  will  surrender  to  Christ  ?  Yes.  How  about 
the  uninviting  portions  ?  Will  Greenland  be  evangelized  ?  The  possibilit}-  is  that 
after  a  few  more  hundred  brave  lives  are  dashed  out  among  the  icebergs,  that 
great  refrigerator,  the  polar  region,  will  be  given  up  to  the  walrus  and  the  bear, 
and  that  the  inhabitants  will  come- down  by  invitation  into  tolerable  climates;  or 
those  climates  may  soften,  and,  as  it  has  been  positively  demonstrated  that  the 
Arctic  region  was  once  a  blooming  garden  and  a  fruitful  field,  those  regions  may 
change  climate  and  again  be  a  blooming  garden  and  a  fruitful  field.  It  is  proved 
beyond  controversy  by  German  and  American  scientists  that  the  Arctic  regions 
were  the  first  portions  of  this  world  inhabitable;  when  the  world  was  hot  beyond 
human  endurance,  these  regions  were,  of  course,  the  first  to  be  cool  enough  for 
human  foot  and  human  lung.  It  is  positively  proved  that  the  Arctic  region  had 
a  tropical  climate.  Professor  Heer,  of  Zurich,  sa3'S  the  remains  of  flowers  have  been 
found  in  the  Arctic,  showing  it  was  like  Mexico  for  climate,  and  it  is  found  that 
the  Arctic  was  the  mother-region  from  which  all  the  flowers  descended.  Professor 
Wallace  says  the  remains  of  all  styles  of  animal  life  are  found  in  the  Arctic, 
including  those  animals  that  can  live  only  in  warm  climates. '  Now,  that  Arctic 
region  which  has  been  demonstrated,  by  flora,  and  fauna,  and  geological  argu- 
ment, to  have  been  as  full  of  vegetation  and  life  as  our  Florida,  may  be  turned 
back  to  its  original  bloom  and  glory,  or  it  will  be  shut  up  as  a  museum  of  crystals 
for  curiosity  seekers  once  in  a  while  to  visit.  Both  Arctic  and  Antarctic,  in  some 
shape,  will  belong  to  the  Redeemer's  realm. 
6  (8i) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


DESERTS  TO   BE   RECLAIMED. 

What  about  other  unproductive  or  repulsive  regions  ?     All  the  deserts  shall 
be  irrigated,  the  waters  will  be  forced  up  to  the  great  American  desert  between 


A   STUDENT   OF  rROPHECY. 

here  and  the  Pacific  by  machinery  now  known  or  yet  to  be  invented,  and,  as 
Great  Salt  Lake  City  has  no  rain  and  could  not  raise  an  apple  or  a  bushel  of  wheat 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  83 

in  a  hundred  years  without  artificial  help,  but  is  now  through  such  means  one 
great  garden,  so  all  the  unproductive  parts  of  all  the  continents  will  be  turned 
into  harvest  fields  and  orchards.  A  half  dozen  De  Eesseps  will  furnish  the  world 
with  all  the  canals  needed,  and  will  change  the  course  of  rivers  and  open  new 
lakes,  and  the  Great  Sahara  Desert  will  be  cut  up  into  farms,  with  an  astounding 
yield  of  bushels  to  the  acre.  The  marsh  will  be  drained  of  its  waters  and  cured 
of  its  malaria.  I  saw  the  other  day  what  was  for  many  years  called  the  Black 
Swamp  of  Ohio,  its  chief  crop  chills  and  fevers,  but  now,  by  the  tiles  put  into  the 
ground  to  carry  off  the  surplus  moisture,  transformed  into  the  richest  and  health- 
iest of  regions.  The  God  who  wastes  nothing,  I  think,  means  that  this  world,  from 
pole  to  pole,  has  to  come  to  perfection  of  foliage  and  fruitage.  For  that  reason 
He  keeps  us  running  through  space,  though  so  many  fires  are  blazing  down  in  its 
timbers,  and  so  man}'  mock  terrors  have  threatened  to  dash  it  to  pieces.  As  soon 
as  the  earth  is  completed  Christ  will  divide  it  up  among  the  good.  The  reason  He 
does  not  divide  it  now  is  because  it  is  not  done.  A  kind  father  will  not  divide 
the  apple  among  his  children  until  the  apple  is  ripe.  In  fulfillment  of  the  New 
Testament  promise,  "  The  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth,"  and  the  promise  of  the 
Old  Testament,  "He  shall  divide  the  spoil  with  the  strong,"  the  world  will  be 
apportioned  to  those  worthy  to  possess  it. 

It  is  not  so  now.  In  this  country,  capable  of  holding,  feeding,  clothing  and 
sheltering  twelve  hundred  million  people,  and  where  we  have  only  60,000,000 
inhabitants,  we  have  2,000,000  who  cannot  get  honest  work,  and  with  their 
families  an  aggregation  of  20,000,000  that  are  on  the  verge  of  starvation.  Some- 
thing wrong  most  certainly.  In  some  way  there  will  be  a  new  apportionment. 
Many  of  the  millionaire  estates  will  crack  to  pieces  on  the  dissipations  of  grand- 
children, and  then   dissolve  into  the  possession  of  the  masses  who  now  have  an 

insufficiencv. 

WHAT  OF  CERTAIN   BUILDINGS? 

What,  you  say,  will  become  of  the  expensive  and  elaborate  buildings  now 
devoted  to  debasing  amusements  ?  The}'  will  become  schools,  art  galleries, 
museums,  gymnasiums  and  churches.  The  world  is  already  getting  disgusted 
with  many  of  these  amusements,  and  no  wonder.  What  an  importation  of 
unclean  theatrical  stuff  we  have  had  brought  to  our  shores  within  the  last  few 
years  !  And  professors  of  religion  patronizing  such  things  !  Having  sold  out  to 
the  devil,  why  don't  you  deliver  the  goods  and  go  over  to  him  publicly,  body, 
mind  and  soul,  and  withdraw  your  name  from  Christian  churches,  and  say: 
' '  Know  all  the  world  by  these  presents  that  I  am  a  patron  of  uncleanliness  and  a 
child  of  hell."     Sworn  to  be  the  lyord's,  you  are  perjurers. 

But  at  last  the  tide  has  turned,  and  the  despisers  of  purity  overdid  the 
matter.     A  foreign  actress  of  base  morals  arrived  intending  to  make  a  tour  of  the 


84  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

States,  but  the  remaining  decency  of  our  cities  rose  up  and  canceled  the  contracts 

and  drove  her  back  from  our  American  stage,  a  woman  fit  for  neither  continent. 

In  the  name  of  Ahiiighty  God  I  take  these  abominations  by  the  throat.     If  you 

think  those  offences  are  to  go  on  forever,  you  do  not  know  who  the  Eord  is.     God 

will  not  wait  for   the  day  of  judgment.     All  the.se  palaces  of  sin  will  become 

palaces  of  righteousness.     They  will  come  into  the  possession  of  those  strong  for 

virtue  and  strong  for  God. 

China  and  Africa,  the  two  richest  portions  of  the  earth  by  reason  of  metals 

and  rare  woods,  and  inexhaustible  productiveness,  are  not  yet  divided  up  among 

the  good  because  they  are  not  ready  to  be  divided.     Wait  until  all  the  doors  that 

Livingstone  opened   in  Africa  shall  be  entered,  and  Bishop  Taylor  with  his  band 

of   self-supporting  missionaries  have  done  their  work,   and   the  Ashantees  and 

Senegambians  shall  know  Christ  as  well  as  you  know  Him,  and  there  shall  be  on 

the  banks  of  the  Nile  and  the  Niger  a  higher  civilization  than  is  now  to  be  found 

on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  then  Christ  will  divide  up  that  continent  among  His 

friends.     Wait   until   China,  which  is  half  as  large   as    all  Europe,   shall  have 

developed  her   capacities  for  rice,  and  tea,  and   sugar,  among  edibles;  and  her 

amethyst,  and  sapphire,  and  topaz,  and  opal,  and  jasper,  and  porphyry,  among 

precious  stones;  and  her  rosewood,  and  ebony,  and  camphor,  and  varnish  trees 

among  precious  woods;  and  turned  up  from  her  depths  a  half  dozen  Pennsylvanias 

of  coal  and  iron,  and  twenty  Nevadas  of  silver,  and  fifty  Californias  of  gold,  and 

her  500,000,000  of   people  shall  be    evangelized;   then   the    Lord  will  divide  it 

up  among  the  good. 

CHRISTIAN   FARMERS. 

If  the  Lord's  promi.se  be  not  a  deception,  but  the  eternal  truth,  then  the  time 
is  coming  when  all  the  farms  will  be  owned  by  Christian  farmers,  and  all  the  com- 
merce controlled  by  Christian  merchants,  and  all  the  authority  held  by  Chri.stian 
ofi&cials,  and  all  the  ships  conunanded  by  Christian  captains,  and  all  the  universi- 
ties under  the  instruction  of  Chri.stian  profe.s.sors;  Christian  kings.  Christian 
presidents.  Christian  governors.  Christian  mayors,  Chri.stian  common  councils. 
Yet,  what  a  scouring  out  !  what  an  upturning  !  what  a  demolition  !  what  a  resur- 
rection mu.st  precede  this  new  apportionment ! 

I  do  not  underrate  the  enemy.  Julius  Coesar  got  his  greatest  victories  by 
fully  estimating  the  vastness  of  his  foes  and  prepared  his  men  for  their  greatest 
triumph  by  saying:  "To-morrow  King  Juba  will  be  here  with  30,000  horses, 
100,000  skirmishers,  and  300  elephants." 

I  do  not  underrate  the  vast  forces  of  sin  and  death,  but  do  you  know  who 
commands  us?  Jehovah -Jireh.  And  the  reserve  corps  behind  us  are  all  the 
armies  of  heaven  and  earth,  with  hurricane  and  thunderbolt.  The  good  work  of 
the  world's  redemption  is  going  on  every  minute.     Never  so  many  splendid  men 


AMERICA. —T^Ko;;/  the  Group  in  Marble  by  John  Bell. 


(85) 


86 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


and  glorious  women  on  the  side  of  right  as  to-day.  Never  so  many  good  people 
as  now.  Diogenes  has  been  spoken  of  as  a  wise  man  because  he  went  with  a 
lantern  at  noonday,  saying  he  was  looking  for  an  honest  man.  If  he  had  turned 
his  lantern  toward  himself  he  might  have  discovered  a  crank.  Honest  men  by 
the  ten  tliousand  !     Through  the    International  Series  of  Sunday-school  Lessons 


A  DIRGE  IN  THR  AFRICAN  DKSRRT. — Ffom  a  Paintuig  by  J.  N.  NcUlcship. 

the  next  generation  all   through  Christendom   are  going  to  be  wiser  than   any 
generation  since  the  world  stood.     The  kingdom  is  coming.     God  can  do  it. 

THE  DIVISION  OF  HEAVEN. 

"  But,"  you  say,  "  that  is  pleasant  to  think  of  for  others,  but  before  that 
time  I  shall  have  passed  up  into  another  existence,  and  I  shall  get  no  advantage 
from  that  new  apportionment." 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


87 


Ah,  you  have  only  driven  me  to  the  other  more  exciting  and  transporting 
consideration,  and  that  is  that  Christ  is  going  to  divide  up  heaven  in  the  same 
way.     There  are  old  estates  in  the  celestial  world  that  have  been  in  the  possession 


LANDING   OF   THE    ROMANS,    UNDER   C^;SAR,    IN   BRITAIN,    B.  C.    55. 

of  its  inhabitants  for  thousands  of   years,  and  they  shall  remain  as  they  are. 
There  are  old  family  mansions  in  heaven  filled  with  whole  generations  of  kindred, 


88 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


and    the)'    shall 
never  be  driven 
out.       Many   of 
the  victors  from 
earth    have     al- 
ready   got    their 
palaces,  and  they 
are   pointed   out 
to    those    newly 
arrived.       Soon 
after  our  getting 
there  we  will  ask 
"5     to  be  shown  the 
c^,     apostolic   resi- 
^'    deuces,   and  ask 
where  does  Paul 
live,   and   John, 
and   shown    the 
patriarchal   resi- 
dences and  shall 
say:      "Where 
does     Abraham 
live,  or  Jacob?" 
and    shown    the 


cq 


w 
« 

w  martyr  residen- 
ce 

^  ces     and     say: 

0  "Where  does 
g  John  Huss  live, 
g  and   Ridley?" 

1  We  will  want  to 


see  the  boule- 
N'ards  where  the 
chariots  of  con- 
querors roll.  I 
will  want  to  see 
the  gardens 
where  the  prin- 
ces walk.  We 
will  want  to  see 
]Music  Row,  hear 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  89 

Handel,  and  Haydn,  and  Mozart,  and  Charles  Wesley,  and  Thomas  Hastings, 
and  Bradbury  in  their  heavenlj^  homes,  out  of  whose  windows,  ever  and  anon, 
are  rolling  some  snatch  of  an  earthly  oratorio  or  hymn  transported  with  the 
composer.  We  will  want  to  see  Revival  Terrace,  where  Whitefield,  and  Nettleton, 
and  Payson,  and  Rowland  Hill,  and  Charles  Finney  and  other  giants  of  soul- 
reaping  are  resting  from  their  almost  supernatural  labors,  all  their  doors  thronged 
with  converts  just  arrived,  coming  to  report  themselves. 

But  brilliant  as  the  sunset,  and  like  the  leaves  for  number,  are  the  celestial 
homes  yet  to  be  awarded,  when  Christ  to  you,  and  millions  of  others,  shall  divide 
the  spoil.  What  do  you  want  there  ?  You  shall  have  it.  An  orchard  ?  There 
it  is;  twelve  manner  of  fruit,  and  fruit  every  month.  Do  you  want  river  scenery  ? 
Take  your  choice  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  in  longer,  wider,  deeper  roll  than 
Danube,  or  Amazon,  or  Mississippi,  if  mingled  in  one,  and  emptying  into  the  sea 
of  glass,  mingled  with  fire.  Do  you  want  ^-our  kindred  back  again  ?  Go  out  and 
meet  your  father  and  mother  without  the  staff  or  the  stoop,  and  your  children  in 
a  dance  of  immortal  glee.  Do  you  want  a  throne  ?  Select  it  from  the  million  of 
burnished  elevations.  Do  you  want  a  crown?  Pick  it  out  of  that  mountain  of 
diamonded  coronets.  Do  you  want  your  old  church  friends  of  earth  around  you? 
Begin  to  hum  an  old  revival  tune  and  they  will  flock  from  all  quarters  to  revel 
with  you  in  sacred  reminiscence.  All  the  earth  for  those  who  are  here  on  earth 
at  the  time  of  continental  and  planetary  distribution,  and  all  the  heavens  for 
those  who  are  there. 

AS  YE   SOW,  SO  SHALL  YE  REAP. 

That  heavenly  distribution  of  spoils  will  be  a  surprise  to  many.  Here  enters 
heaven  the  soul  of  a  man  who  took  up  a  great  deal  of  room  in  the  Church  on 
earth,  but  sacrificed  little,  and  among  his  good  works  selfishness  was  evident. 
He  just  crowds  through  the  shining  gate,  but  it  is  a  very  tight  squeeze,  so  that 
the  door-keeper  has  to  pull  hard  to  get  him  in,  and  this  man  expects  half  of 
heaven  for  his  share  of  trophies,  and  he  would  like  a  monopoly  of  all  its  splendor, 
and  to  purchase  lots  in  the  suburbs,  so  that  he  could  get  advantages  from  the 
growth  of  the  city.  Well,  he  had  a  little  grace  of  heart,  just  enough  to  get  him 
through,  and  to  him  is  given  a  second-hand  crown,  which  one  of  the  saints  wore 
at  the  start,  but  exchanged  for  a  brighter  one  as  he  went  on  from  glor)'  to  glory. 
And  he  is  put  in  an  old  house  once  occupied  by  an  angel  who  was  hurled  out  of 
heaven  at  the  time  of  Satan's  rebellion. 

Right  after  him  comes  a  soul  that  makes  a  great  stir  among  the  celestials,  and 
the  angels  rush  to  the  scene,  each  bringing  to  her  a  dazzling  coronet.  Who  is 
she  ?  Over  what  realm  on  earth  was  she  queen  ?  In  what  great  Dusseldorf  festival 
was  she  the  cantatrice  ?     Neither.     She  was  an  invalid  who  never  left  her  room 


90 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


^^y^x"^ 


for  twenty  years;  but  she  was  strong  ni  prayer,  and  she  prayed  down  revival  after 
revival,  and  peutecost  after  pentecost,  upon  the  churches,  and  with  her  pale  hands 
she  knit  many  a  mitten  or  tippet  for  the  poor,  and  with  her  contrivances  she  added 
joy  to  many  a  holiday  festival;  and  now,  with  those  thin  hands  so  strong  for  kind- 
ness, and  those  white  lips  so  strong  for  supplication,  she  has  won  coronation,  and 
enthronement,  and  jubilee.  And  Christ  says  to  the  angels  who  have  brought  each 
\     \   V    ,'   ,'   ^    y  a    crown    to  the 

glorified  invalid: 
"No,  not 
these ;  they  are 
not  good  enough . 
But  in  the  jew- 
eled vase  at  the 
right-hand  side 
of  My  throne 
there  is  one  that 
I  have  been  pre- 

^°"  many   a   5^ ear, 

and  for  her  every 
pang  I  have  set 
an  amethyst,  and 
for  her  everj'^  good 
deed  I  have  set  a 
pearl.  Fetch  it  now 
and  fulfill  the  prom- 
ise I  gave  her  long 
ago  in  the  sick-room: 
'  Be  thou  faithful  un- 
to death,  and  I  will 
give  thee  a  crown.'  " 
But  notice  that  there 
is  only  one  being  in  the 
miverse  who  can  and  will  dis- 
tribute the  trophies  of  earth  and 
heaven.  It  is  the  divine  warrior,  the 
commander-in-chief  of  the  centuries,  the  champion  of  the  ages,  the  universal 
conciueror,  the  Son  of  God— Jesus.  Have  His  friendship,  and  >ou  may  defy  all 
time  and  all  eternity,  but  without  it  you  were  a  pauper,  though  you  had  a  universe 
at  your  command.     We   are  told  in  Revelation  that  Jacob's  twelve  sons  were  so 


^Zfm.  ftj 


THE  TEMPTATION.— F;'C>;«  the  Painting  by  Tintoretto. 


92 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  IJFE. 


honored  as  to  have  the  twelve  gates  of  heaven  named  after  them — over  one  gate  of 
heaven  NaphtaH,  over  another  gate  of  heaven  Issachar,  over  another  Dan,  over 
another  Gad,  over  another  Zebuhin,  over  another  Judah,  and  so  on.  But  Christ's 
name  is  written  over  all  the  gates,  and  on  every  panel  of  the  gates,  and  have  His 
help,    His   pardon,    His    intercession,   His    atonement,    I   must,    or   be   a  forlorn 

wretch    forever.      My 

Lord  and  my  God ! 
make  me  and  all  to 
whom  these  words 
shall  come  Thy  re- 
pentant, believing, 
sworn,  consecrated 
and  ransomed  follow- 
ers fore^•er. 

What  a  day  it 
will  be  !  All  my 
readers  would  rise  to 
their  feet  if  they  could 
realize  it,  the  day  in 
which  Christ  shall,  in 
fulfillment  of  ni}'  text, 
divide  the  spoil.  It 
was  a  great  day,  when 
Queen  Victoria,  in  the 
midst  of  the  Crimean 
war,  distributed  med- 
als to  the  soldiers  who 
had  come  home  sick 
and  wounded.  At  the 
Horse  Guards,  in  the 
presence  of  the  royal 
family,  the  injured 
men  were  carried  in 
(ir  came  on  crutches 
and  with  her  own  hand 
the  Queen  gave  each  the  Crimean  medal.  And  what  triumphant  days  for  those 
soldiers  when,  further  on,  they  received  the  French  medal  with  the  Imperial 
eagle,  and  the  Turkish  medal  with  its  representation  of  four  flags — France, 
Turkey,  England  and  vSardinia — and  beneath  it  a  map  of  the  Crimea  spread 
over  a  gun-wheel. 


KOUR    FAMOUS    MKDAI.S. 


The  Legion  of  Honor. 
The  Victoria  Cross. 


The  Waterloo  Medal. 
The  Crimean  Medal. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  93 

THE  FINAL  REWARD. 

And  what  rewards  are  suggested  to  all  readers  of  histor>'  by  the  mere  mention 
of  the  Waterloo  medal,  and  the  Cape  medal,  and  the  Gold-cross  medal,  and  the 
medal  struck  for  bravery  in  our  American  wars  !  But  how  insignificant  are  all 
these  compared  with  the  day  when  the  good  soldiers  of  Jesus  Christ  shall  come  in 
out  of  the  battles  of  this  world,  and  in  the  presence  of  all  the  piled-up  glories  of 
the  redeemed  and  unfallen,  Jesus,  our  King,  shall  divide  the  spoil  !  The  more 
wounds  the  greater  the  inheritance.  The  longer  the  forced  march  the  brighter 
the  trophy.  The  more  terrific  the  exhaustion  the  more  glorious  the  transport. 
Not  the  gift  of  a  brilliant  ribbon,  or  a  medal  of  brass,  or  silver,  or  gold,  but  a 
kingdom  in  which  we  are  to  reign  for  ever  and  ever.  Mansions  on  the  eternal 
hills.  Dominions  of  unfading  power.  Empires  of  unending  love.  Continents 
of  everlasting  light.  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans  of  billowing  joy.  It  was  a 
great  day  when  Aurelian,  the  Roman  emperor,  came  back  from  his  victories.  In 
the  front  of  the  procession  were  wild  beasts  from  all  lands,  1600  gladiators  richly 
clad,  wagon-loads  of  crowns  presented  by  conquered  cities;  among  the  captives, 
Sj^rians,  Egyptians,  Goths,  Vandals,  Sarmatians,  Franks;  and  Zenobia,  the  beau- 
tiful captive  queen,  on  foot  in  chains  of  gold  that  a  slave  had  to  help  her  carry, 
and  jewels  under  the  weight  of  which  she  almost  fainted.  And  then  came  the 
chariot  of  Aurelian,  drawn  by  four  elephants  in  gorgeous  caparison  and  followed 
by  the  Roman  Senate  and  the  Roman  army,  and  from  dawn  till  dark  the  proces- 
sion was  passing.  Rome  in  all  her  history  never  saw  anything  more  magnificent. 
But  how  much  greater  the  day  when  our  conqueror,  Jesus,  shall  ride  under  the 
triumphant  arches  of  heaven ,  His  captives  not  on  foot  but  in  chariots,  all  the  king- 
doms of  heaven  and  earth  in  procession,  the  armies  celestial  on  white  horses,  rum- 
bling artillery  of  thunderbolts  never  again  to  be  unlimbered,  kingdoms  in  line, 
centuries  in  line,  saintly,  cherubic,  seraphic,  archangelic  splendors  in  line,  and 
Christ,  seated  on  one  great  rolling  hosanna,  made  out  of  all  hallelujahs  of  all 
worlds,  shall  ciy,  "  Halt"  to  the  procession.  And  not  forgetting  even  the  hum- 
blest in  all  the  reach  of  His  omnipresence,  He  shall  rise  and  then  and  there.  His 
work  done  and  His  glory  consummated,  proceed,  amid  an  ecstasy  such  as  neither 
mortal  nor  immortal  ever  imagined,  to  divide  the  spoil. 


E^^ffitS^^^g;j;aj^^;™°^°«"yffyi?gj?^  ^ 


itiWr''T^^r^ri^rirTyiri^-'t^ii^?i^ 


HOW  TO  ATTAIN  TRUE   HAPPINESS. 

"\. 

F,  in  midsummer,  I  should  ask  some  one,  where  are  the  people  of 
New  York,  Brooklyn,  Boston  or  Philadelphia,  the  answer 
would  be:  At  Brighton  Beach,  East  Hampton,  Shelter 
Island,  lyong  Branch,  Cape  May,  Sulphur  Springs  or 
Europe.  But  while  many  are  at  the  pleasure  resorts  the 
larger  number  are  at  home,  detained  by  business  or 
circumstances. 

But  the  genuine  American  is  not  happy  luiless  he  is 
going  somewhere,  and  the  passion  is  so  great  that  there 
are  Christian  people  with  their  families  detained  in  the 
city  who  come  not  to  the  house  of  God,  trying  to  give  people  the  idea  that  thcN'  are 
out  of  town;  leaving  the  door-plate  unsecured  for  the  same  reason,  and  for  two 
months  keeping  the  front  shutters  closed  while  they  sit  in  the  back  part  of  the 
house,  the  thermometer  at  ninety  !  M}^  friends,  if  it  is  best  for  us  to  go,  let  us  go 
and  be  happy.  If  it  is  best  for  us  to  stay  at  home,  let  us  stay  at  home  and  be 
happy.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  good  common  sense  in  Paul's  advice  to  the  He- 
brews: "  Be  content  with  such  things  as  ye  have."  To  be  content  is  to  be  in  good 
humor  with  our  circumstances,  not  picking  a  quarrel  with  our  obscurit}-,  or  our 
poverty,  or  our  social  position.  There  are  four  or  five  grand  reasons  why  we 
should  be  content  with  such  things  as  we  have. 

We  make  a  great  ado  about  our  hardships,  but  how  little  we  talk  of  our  bless- 
ings. Health  of  body,  which  is  given  in  largest  quantity  to  those  who  have 
never  been  petted,  and  fondled,  and  spoiled  by  fortune,  we  take  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Rather  have  this  luxury  and  have  it  alone,  than,  without  it,  look  out  of 
a  palace  window  upon  parks  of  deer  stalking  between  fountains  and  statuary. 
These  people  sleep  sounder  on  a  straw  mattress  than  fashionable  invalids  on  a 
couch  of  ivory  and  eagle's  down.  The  dinner  of  herbs  tastes  better  to  the  appe- 
tite sharpened  on  a  woodman's  axe  or  a  reaper's  .scythe  than  wealthy  indigestion 
experiences  seated  at  a  table  covered  with  partridge,  and  venison,  and  pineapple. 
The  grandest  luxury  God  ever  gave  a  man  is  health.  He  who  trades  that  off 
for  all  the  palaces  of  the  earth  is  infinitely  cheated.  We  look  back  at  the  glory  of  the 
last  Napoleon,  but  who  would  have  taken  his  Versailles  and  his  Tuilleries  if  with 

(94) 


96  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

them  we  had  been  obliged  to  take  his  gout?     "  Oh,"  says  some  one,  "  it  isn't  the 

grosser  pleasures  I  covet,  but  it  is  the  gratification  of  an  artistic  and  intellectual 

taste."     Why,  my  brother,  you  have  the  original  from  which  these  pictures  are 

copied. 

THE  ORIGINAL  AND    THE  COPY. 

What  is  a  sunset  on  a  wall  compared  wath  a  sunset  hung  in  loops  of  fire  in 
the  heavens  ?  What  is  a  cascade  silent  on  a  canvas  compared  with  a  cascade 
that  makes  the  mountain  tremble,  its  spray  ascending  like  the  departing  spirit  of 
the  water  slain  on  the  rocks?  Oh,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  hollow  affectation  about 
a  fondness  for  pictures  on  the  part  of  those  who  never  appreciate  the  original  from 
which  the  pictures  are  taken.  As  though  a  parent  should  have  no  regard  for  a 
child,  but  go  into  ecstasies  over  its  photograph.  Bless  the  Lord  to-day,  O  man  ! 
O  woman  !  that  though  you  may  be  shut  out  from  the  works  of  a  Church,  a 
Bierstadt,  a  Rubens,  and  a  Raphael,  you  still  have  free  access  to  a  gallery  grander 
than  the  Louvre  or  the  Luxemburg  or  the  Vatican — the  roj^al  gallery  of  the 
noonday  heavens  the  King's  gallery  of  the  midnight  sky. 

You  see  people  happy  and  miserable  amid  all  circumstances.  In  a  family 
where  the  last  loaf  is  on  the  table,  and  the  last  stick  of  wood  on  the  fire,  you 
sometimes  find  a  cheerful  confidence  in  God,  while  in  a  very  fine  place  you  will 
see  and  hear  discord  sounding  the  war-whoop,  and  hospitality  freezing  to  death  in 
the  cheerless  parlor.  I  stopped  one  day  on  Broadway  at  the  head  of  Wall  street, 
at  the  foot  of  Trinity  Church,  to  see  who  seemed  the  happiest  people  passing.  I 
judged  from  their  looks  the  happiest  people  were  not  those  who  went  down  into 
Wall  street,  for  they  had  on  their  brow  the  anxiety  of  the  dollar  they  expected  to 
make;  nor  the  people  who  came  out  of  Wall  street,  for  they  had  on  their  brow 
the  anxiety  of  the  dollar  they  had  lost;  nor  the  people  who  swept  by  in  splendid 
equipage,  for  they  met  a  carriage  finer  than  theirs.  The  happiest  person  in  all 
that  crowd,  judging  from  the  countenance,  was  the  woman  who  sat  at  the  apple- 
stand  knitting.  I  believe  real  happiness  oftener  looks  out  of  the  window  of  an 
humble  home  than  through  the  opera-glass  in  the  gilded  box  of  a  theatre. 

I  find  Nero  growling  on  a  throne.  I  find  Paul  singing  in  a  dungeon.  I  find 
King  Ahab  going  to  bed  at  noon  through  melancholy,  while  near  by  is  Naboth 
contented  in  the  possession  of  a  vineyard.  Haman,  Prime  Minister  of  Persia, 
frets  himself  almost  to  death  because  a  poor  Jew  will  not  tip  his  hat;  and  Ahitho- 
phel,  one  of  the  greatest  lawyers  of  Bible  times,  through  fear  of  dying,  hangs  him- 
self. The  wealthiest  man,  forty  years  ago,  in  New  York,  when  congratulated 
over  his  large  e.state,  replied:  "Ah !  you  don't  know  how  much  trouble  I  have  in 
taking  care  of  it."  Byron  declared  in  his  last  hours  that  he  had  never  seen  more 
than  twelve  happy  days  in  all  his  life.  I  do  not  believe  he  had  seen  twelve  min- 
utes of  thorough  satisfaction.     Napoleon  I.  said:   "I  turn  with  disgust  from  the 


.971 


98  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

cowardice  and  selfishness  of  man.      I  hold  life  a  horror;  death  is  repose.     What  I 
have  suffered  the  last  twenty  days  is  beyond  human  comprehension." 

While,  on  the  other  hand,  to  show  how  one  may  be  happy  amid  the  most  dis- 
advantageous circumstances,  just  after  the  Ocean  Monarch  had  been  wrecked  in 
the  English  Channel,  a  steamer  was  cruising  along  in  the  darkness,  when  the  cap- 
tain heard  a  song,  a  sweet  song,  coming  over  the  water,  and  he  bore  down  towards 
that  voice,  and  found  it  was  a  Christian  woman  on  a  plank  of  the  wrecked  steamer, 
singing  to  the  tune  of  "  St.  Martin's." 

"Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul, 
Let  me  to  Thy  bosom  fly, 
While  the  billows  near  me  roll. 
While  the  tempest  still  is  high." 

The  heart  right  toward  God  and  man,  we  are  happy.  The  heart  wrong 
toward  God  and  man,  we  are  unhappy. 

Another  reason  why  we  should  be  filled  with  the  spirit  of  content  is  the  fact 
that  all  the  differences  of  earthly  condition  are  transitory.  The  houses  you  build, 
the  land  you  cultivate,  the  places  in  which  you  barter,  are  soon  to  go  into  other 
hands.  However  hard  you  may  have  it  now,  if  you  are  a  Christian  the  scene 
wall  soon  end.  Pain,  trial,  persecution  will  never  knock  at  the  door  of  the  grave. 
A  coffin  made  out  of  pine  boards  is  just  as  good  a  resting-place  as  one  made  out 
of  silver-mounted  mahogany  or  rosewood. 

WHERE  AMBITION   SLEEPS. 

Go  down  among  the  resting-places  of  the  dead,  and  you  will  find  that  though 
people  there  had  a  great  difference  of  worldly  circumstances,  now  they  are  all  alike 
unconscious.  The  hand  that  greeted  the  senator,  and  the  president,  and  the 
king,  is  still  as  the  hand  that  hardened  on  the  mechanic's  hammer  or  the  manu- 
facturer's wheel.  It  does  not  make  any  difference  now  whether  there  is  a  plain 
stone  above  them  from  which  the  traveler  pulls  aside  the  weeds  to  read  the  name, 
•or  a  tall  shaft  springing  into  the  heavens  as  though  to  tell  their  virtues  to  the 
skies. 

In  that  silent  land  there  are  no  titles  for  great  men,  and  there  are  no  rum- 
blings of  chariot  wheels,  and  their  is  never  heard  the  foot  of  the  dance.  The 
Egyptian  guano  which  is  thrown  on  the  fields  in  the  East  for  the  enrichment  of 
the  soil  is  the  dust  raked  out  from  the  sepulchres  of  kings  and  lords  and  mighty 
men.  Oh,  the  chagrin  of  those  men  if  they  had  ever  known  that  in  the  after-ages 
of  the  world  they  would  have  been  called  Egyptian  guano. 

Of  how  much  worth  now  is  the  crown  of  Caesar  ?  Who  bids  for  it  ?  Who 
cares  now  anything  about  the  Amphictyonic  council  or  the  laws  of  Lycurgus  ? 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


99 


Who  trembles  now  because  Xerxes  crossed  the  Hellespont  on  a  bridge  of  boats  ? 
Who  fears  because  Nebuchadnezzar  thunders  at  the  gates  of  Jerusalem  ?  Who 
cares  now  whether  or  not  Cleopatra  marries  Anthony  ?  Who  crouches  before  Ferdi- 
nand, or  Bonifice,  or  Alaric  ?  Can  Cromwell  dissolve  the  English  Parliament 
now?  Is  William,  Prince  of  Orange,  King  of  the  Netherlar.ds ?  No,  no  !  How- 
ever much  Elizabeth  may  love  the  Russian  crown,  she  must  pass  it  to  Peter,  and 


PRINCIPAIv   WORKS   OF  CHRISTOPHER   WREN,  WITH   ST.   PAUL'S   CATHEDRAL   RISING   FROM   THE 

BACKGROUND. — From  a  Painting  by  C.  R.  Cockercll. 

Peter  to  Catharine,  and  Catharine  to  Paul,  and  Paul  to  Alexander,  and  Alexander 
to  Nicholas.  lycopold  puts  the  German  sceptre  into  the  hand  of  Joseph,  and 
Philip  comes  down  off  the  Spanish  throne  to  let  Ferdinand  go  on.  House  of 
Aragon,  house  of  Hapsburg,  house  of  Stuart,  house  of  Bourbon,  quarreling  about 
everything  else,  but  agreeing  in  this:   "  The  fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away." 


loo  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

But  have  all  these  dignitaries  gone  ?  Can  they  not  be  called  back  ?  I  have 
been  in  assemblages  where  I  have  heard  the  roll  called,  and  many  distinguished 
men  have  answered.  If  I  should  call  the  roll  to-day  of  some  of  those  mighty 
ones  who  have  gone  I  wonder  if  they  would  not  answer  ?  I  will  call  the  roll.  I 
will  call  the  roll  of  the  kings  first:  Alfred  the  Great  !  William  the  Conqueror  ! 
Frederick  II.  !  Louis  XVI.  !  No  answer,  I  will  call  the  roll  of  the  poets: 
Robert  Southey  !  Thomas  Campbell !  John  Keats  !  George  Crabbe  !  Robert 
Burns  !  No  answer.  I  will  call  the  roll  of  artists:  Michael  Angelo  !  Paul 
Veronese  !  William  Turner  !  Christopher  Wren  !  No  answer.  Eyes  closed. 
Ears  deaf.  Eifis  silent.  Hands  palsied.  Sceptre,  pencil,  pen,  sword,  put  down 
forever.     Why  should  we  struggle  for  such  baubles  ? 

If  your  path  had  been  smooth,  5'ou  would  have  depended  upon  your  own 
surefootedness;  but  God  roughened  that  path,  so  3'ou  have  to  take  hold  of  His 
hand.  If  the  weather  had  been  mild,  you  would  have  loitered  along  the  water- 
courses, but  at  the  first  howl  of  the  storm  you  quickened  your  pace  heavenward 
and  wrapped  around  you  the  warm  robe  of  a  Saviour's  righteousness.  "What 
have  I  done?"  says  the  wheat-sheaf  to  the  farmer.  "  What  have  I  done  that  you 
beat  me  so  hard  with  your  flail?"  The  farmer  makes  no  answer,  but  the  rake 
takes  off  the  straw,  and  the  mill  blows  the  chaff  to  the  wind,  and  the  golden  grain 
falls  down  at  the  foot  of  the  windmill.  After  a  while,  the  straw,  looking  down 
from  the  mow  upon  the  golden  grain  banked  up  on  either  side  the  floor,  under- 
stands why  the  farmer  beats  the  wheat-sheaf  with  the  flail. 

Who  are  those  before  the  throne?  The  answer  came:  "These  are  they 
which  came  out  of  great  tribulation,  and  have  washed  their  robes  and  made  them 
white  in  the  blood  of  the  Eamb,"  Would  to  God  that  we  could  understand  that 
our  trials  are  the  very  best  thing  for  us.  If  we  had  an  appreciation  of  that  truth, 
then  we  should  know  why  it  was  that  John  Noyra,  the  martyr,  in  the  ver>'  niidst 
of  the  flame,  reached  down  and  picked  up  one  of  the  fagots  that  was  consuming 
him,  and  kissed  it,  and  said:  "  Blessed  be  God  for  the  time  when  I  was  born  for 
this  perferment,"  They  who  suffer  with  Him  on  earth  shall  be  glorified  with 
Him  in  heaven.     Be  content,  then,  with  such  things  as  you  have. 

THE  REST  THAT  SHALL  BE  OURS. 

But  notwithstanding  all  the  promises  and  inducements  to  a  spirit  of  content- 
ment the  human  race  is  divided  into  two  classes — those  who  scold  and  those  who 
get  scolded.  The  carpenter  wants  to  be  anything  but  a  carpenter,  and  the  mason 
anything  but  a  mason,  and  the  banker  anything  but  a  banker,  and  the  lawyer 
anything  but  a  lawyer,  and  the  minister  anything  but  a  minister,  and  everybody 
would  be  happy  if  he  were  only  somebody  else.  The  anemone  wants  to  be  a 
sunflower,  and  the  apple  orchards  throw  down  their  blossoms  because  they  are  not 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  loi 

tall  cedars,  and  the  scow  wants  to  be  a  schooner,  and  the  sloop  would  like  to  be  a 
seventy -four  pounder,  and  parents  have  the  worst  children  that  ever  were,  and 
everybody  has  the  greatest  misfortune,  and  everything  is  upside  down,  or  going 
to  be.  Ah!  my  readers,  you  never  make  any  advance  through  such  a  spirit  as 
that.  You  cannot  fret  yourself  up  ;  you  may  fret  yourself  down.  Amid  all  this 
grating  of  tones  I  strike  this  string  of  the  gospel  harp:  "  Godliness  with  content- 
ment is  great  gain.  We  brought  nothing  into  this  world,  and  it  is  certain  we  can 
carry  nothing  out ;  and  having  food  and  raiment,  let  us  be  therewith  content." 

Let  us  all  remember,  if  we  are  Christians,  that  we  are  going  after  a  while, 
whatever  be  our  circumstances  now,  to  have  a  glorious  vacation.  As  in  summer 
we  put  off  our  garments  and  go  down  into  the  cool  sea  to  bathe,  so  we  will  put  off 
these  garments  of  flesh,  and  step  into  the  cool  Jordan.  We  will  look  around  for 
some  place  to  lay  down  our  weariness  ;  and  the  trees  will  say  :  ' '  Come  and  rest 
under  our  shadow  ;  "  and  the  earth  will  say:  "  Come  and  sleep  in  my  bosom  ;  " 
and  the  winds  will  say  :  "Hush!  while  I  sing  thee  a  cradle  hymn  ;  "  and  while 
six  strong  men  carry  us  out  to  our  last  resting-place,  and  ashes  come  to  ashes  and 
dust  to  dust,  we  will  see  two  scarred  feet  standing  amid  the  broken  soil,  and  a 
lacerated  brow  bending  over  the  open  grave,  while  a  voice,  tender  with  all  affection 
and  mighty  with  all  omnipotence,  will  declare  :  "  I  am  the  resurrection  and  the 
life;  he  that  believeth  in  Me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live. "  Comfort 
one  another  with  these  words. 


®)Cir  ^oun^  UTontjen^ 


HOW  TO   FIGHT  THE  BATTLE  OF  LIFE  ALONE. 

'OMAN  is  a  mere  adjunct  to  man,  an  appendix  to  the  mascu- 
line volume,  an  appendage,  a  sort  of  afterthought,  something 
thrown  in  to  make  things  even — that  is  the  heresy  enter- 
tained and  implied  by  some  men.  This  is  evident  to  them: 
Woman's  insignificance  as  compared  to  man  is  evident  to 
them,  because  Adam  was  first  created  and  then  Eve.  They 
don't  read  the  whole  story  or  they  would  find  that  the  por- 
poise and  the  bear  and  the  hawk  were  created  before  Adam, 
so  that  the  argument  drawn  from  priority  of  creation  might  prove 
that  the  sheep  and  the  dog  were  greater  than  man.  No;  woman 
was  an  independent  creation,  and  was  intended,  if  she  chose,  to  live 
alone,  to  walk  alone,  act  alone,  think  alone,  and  fight  the  battle  of 
life  alone.  The  Bible  says,  it  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone,  but 
never  says  it  is  not  good  for  woman  to  be  alone,  and  the  simple 
fact  is  that  many  women  who  are  harnessed  for  life  in  the  marriage 
relation  would  be  a  thousand-fold  better  off'  if  they  were  alone. 
God  makes  no  mistake,  and  the  fact  that  there  is  such  a  large 
majority  of  women  in  this  land  proves  that  He  intended  that  multitudes  of  them 
should  go  alone. 

Who  are  these  men  who  year  after  year  hang  around  hotels  and  engine-houses 
and  theatre  doors,  and  come  in  and  out  to  bother  busy  clerks  and  merchants  and 
mechanics,  doing  nothing  even  when  there  is  plenty  to  do?  They  are  men 
supported  by  their  wives  and  mothers.  If  the  statistics  of  any  of  our  cities  could 
be  taken  on  this  subject  you  would  find  that  a  vast  multitude  of  women  not  only 
support  themselves,  but  masculines  also.  A  great  legion  of  men  amount  to 
nothing,  and  a  woman  by  tnarriage  manacled  to  one  of  these  nonentities  needs 
condolence.  A  woman  standing  outside  the  marriage  relation  is  several  hundred 
thousand  times  better  off  than  a  woman  badly  married.  Many  a  bride,  instead  of 
a  wreath  of  orange  blossoms,  might  more  properly  wear  a  bunch  of  nettles  and 
night-shade,  and  instead  of  the  wedding  march  a  more  appropriate  tune  would  be 
the  Dead  March  in  Saul,  and  instead  of  a  banquet  of  confectionery  and  ices  there 

(.102) 


THK  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


103 


might  be  more  appropriately  spread  a 
are  outside  fair  and  inside  ashes. 

Many  an  attractive  woman  of 
good,  sound  sense  in  other  things,  has 
married  one  of  these  men  to  reform 
him.  What  was  the  result?  Like 
when  a  dove,  noticing  that  a  vulture 
was  rapacious  and  cruel,  set  about  to 
reform  it,  and  said:  "I  have  a  mild 
disposition  and  I  like  peace,  and  was 
brought  up  in  the  quiet  of  a  dove-cote, 
and  I  will  bring  the  vulture  to  the  same 
liking  by  marrying  him."  So  one 
da)^  after  the  vulture  had  declared  he 
would  give  up  his  carnivorous  habits 
and  cease  longing  for  blood  of   flock 


table  covered  with  apples  of  Sodom,  which 


The  vagabond  in  the  street. 

and  herd,  at  an  altar  of  rock 
covered  with  moss  and  lichen, 
the  twain  were  married,  a 
bald-headed  eagle  oflBciating, 
the  vulture  saying:  "With 
all  my  dominion  of  earth  and 
sky  I  thee  endow,  and  promise 
to  love  and  cherish  till  death 
do  us  part."  But  one  day  in 
her  flight  the  dove  saw  the 
vulture  busy  at  a  carcass,  and 
cried:  "  Stop  that  !  did  you 
not  promise  me  that  you  would 
quit  your  carnivorous  and  fil- 
thy habits  if  I  married  you?"  "  Yes,"  said  the  vulture,  "  but  if  you  don't  like 
my  way  you  can  leave,"  and  with  one  angrj'  stroke  of  beak   and  another  fierce 


THE   VAGABOND   IN   THE    DRAWING   ROOM. 


I04  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

clutch  of  claw  the  vulture  left  the  dove  eyeless,  and  wingless,  and  lifeless.  And 
a  flock  of  robins  flying  past  cried  to  each  other  and  said:  "  See  there  ?  that  comes 
from  a  dove's  marrying  a  vulture  to  reform  him." 

Many  a  woman  who  has  had  the  hand  of  a  young  inebriate  offered,  but 
declined  it,  or  who  was  asked  to  chain  her  life  to  a  man  selfish  or  of  bad  temper, 
and  refused  the  shackles,  will  bless  God  throughout  all  eternity  that  she  escaped 
that  earthly  pandemonium. 

Besides  all  this,  in  our  country  about  1,000,000  men  were  sacrificed  in  our 
Civil  War,  and  that  decreed  1,000,000  women  to  celibacj^.  Besides  that,  since  the 
war,  several  armies  of  men  as  large  as  the  Federal  and  Confederate  armies  put 
together  have  fallen  under  malt  liquors  and  distilled  .spirits  so  full  of  poi.soned 
ingredients  that  the  work  was  done  more  rapidly,  and  the  victims  fell  while  yet 
young.  And  if  50,000  men  are  destroyed  every  year  by  strong  drink  before  mar- 
riage, that  makes,  in  the  twenty-three  years  since  the  war,  1,150,000  men  slain, 
and  decrees  1,150,000  women  to  celibacy.  Take  then  the  fact  that  so  many 
women  are  unhappy  in  their  marriage,  and  the  fact  that  the  slaughter  of  2,150,000 
men  by  war  and  rum  combined,  decides  that  at  least  that  number  of  women  shall 
be  imaffianced  for  life. 

In  addressing  these  women  who  will  have  to  fight  the  battle  of  life  alone,  I 
congratulate  you  on  your  happy  escape.  Rejoice  forever  that  you  will  not  have 
to  navigate  the  faults  of  the  other  sex,  when  you  have  faults  enough  of  your  own. 
Think  of  the  bereavements  you  avoid,  of  the  risk  of  unassirailated  temper  which 
you  will  not  have  to  run,  of  the  cares  you  will  never  have  to  carr>%  and  of  the 
opportunity  of  outside  usefulness  from  which  marital  life  would  have  partially 
debarred  you,  and  that  you  are  free  to  go  and  come  as  one  who  has  the  responsi- 
bilities of  a  household  can  seldom  be.  God  has  not  given  you  a  hard  lot  as  com- 
pared with  your  sisters.  When  young  women  shall  make  up  their  minds  at  the 
start  that  masculine  companionship  is  not  a  necessity  in  order  to  happiness,  and 
that  there  is  a  strong  proba1)ility  that  they  will  have  to  fight  the  battle  of  life  alone, 
they  will  be  getting  the  timber  ready  for  their  own  fortunes  and  their  saw  and  axe 
and  plane  sharpened  for  its  construction,  since  "every  wise  woman  buildetli  her 
house. ' ' 

SHOULD   LEARN  TO  SUPPORT  THEMSELVES. 

As  no  boy  ought  to  be  brought  up  without  learning  some  business  at  which  he 
could  earn  a  livelihood,  so  no  girl  ought  to  be  brought  up  without  learning  the 
science  of  self-support.  The  difficulty  is  tliat  many  a  family  goes  sailing  on  the 
high  tides  of  success,  and  the  husband  and  father  depends  on  his  own  health  and 
acumen  for  the  welfare  of  his  household;  but  one  day  he  gets  his  feet  wet,  and  in 
three  days  pneumonia  has  closed  his  life,  and  the  daughters  are  turned  out  on  a 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


105 


cold  world  to  earn  bread,  and  there  is  nothing  practical  that  they  can  do.     The 
friends  of  the  family  come  in  and  hold  consultation. 

"  Give  music  lessons,"  says  an  outsider.  Yes,  that  is  st  useful  calling,  and 
if  you  have  great  genius  for  it  go  on  in  that  direction.  But  there  are  enough 
music  teachers  now  starving  to  death  in  all  our  towns  and  cities  to  occupy  all  the 
piano  stools,  and  sofas,  and  chairs,  and  front  door-steps  of  the  city.  Besides  that, 
the  daughter  has  been 
play  ingonly  for  amuse- 
ment, and  is  only  at 
the  foot  of  the  ladder, 
to  the  top  of  which  a 
great  multitude  of 
masters  on  piano,  and 
harp,  and  flute,  and 
organ  have  climbed. 

' '  Put   the  bereft 
daughters     as     sales- 
women    in      stores, ' ' 
says  another  adviser. 
But  there  they  must 
compete  with  salesman 
of  long  experience,  or 
with   men   who   have 
served  an  apprentice- 
ship in  commerce,  and 
who   began    as    shop 
boys  at  ten  years  of 
age.     Some  kind- 
hearted  dry-goods  man  having  known  the  father,  now  gone, 
says:     "  We  are   not  in    need  of   any  more   help  just    now, 
but  send  you  daughters  to  my  store,  and  I  will  do  as  well  by 
them  as  possible."     Very  soon  the  question  conies  up:    "  Why 
do  not  the  female  employes  get  as  much  wages  as  the  male 
employes?"     For  the  simple  reason  in  many  cases  the  females 
were  suddenly  flung  by  misfortune  behind  that  counter,  while 
the   males  have    from   the  day   they  left   the   public   school   been  learning  the 
business. 

How  is  this  evil  to  be  cured  ?  Start  clear  back  in  the  homestead  and  teach 
your  daughters  that  life  is  an  earnest  thing,  and  that  there  is  a  possibility,  if  not  a 
strong  probability,  that  they  will  have  to  fight  the  battle  of  life  alone.     Let  every 


MILTON   DICT\TING    ' 
DAUGHTERS 


io6  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

father  and  mother  say  to  their  daughters:  "  Now,  what  would  3'ou  do  for  a  liveli- 
hood if  what  I  now  own  were  swept  away  by  financial  disaster,  or  old  age  or  death 
should  suddenly  end  my  career  ?" 

"  Well,  I  could  paint  on  pottery  and  do  such  decorative  work."  Yes,  that  is 
beautiful,  and  if  you  have  genius  for  it  go  on  in  that  direction.  But  many  others 
before  you  found  the  same  occupation  so  pleasant  that  now  it,  too,  is  overdone. 

"  Well,  I  could  make  recitations  in  public  and  earn  my  living  as  a  dramatist. 
I  could  render  King  Lear  or  Macbeth  till  your  hair  would  rise  on  end,  or  give  you 
'Sheridan's  Ride'  or  Dickens'  'Pickwick.'  "  Yes,  that  is  a  beautiful  art,  but 
ever  and  anon,  as  now,  there  is  an  epidemic  of  dramatization  that  makes  hun- 
dreds of  households  nervous  with  the  cries  and  shrieks  and  groans  of  young 
tragedians  dying  in  the  fifth  act,  and  the  trouble  is  that  while  your  friends  would 
like  to  hear  you,  and  really  think  that  you  could  surpass  Ristori  and  Charlotte 
Cushman  and  Fanny  Kemble  of  the  past,  to  say  nothing  of  the  present,  you  could 
not,  in  the  way  of  living,  in  ten  years  earn  ten  cents. 

My  advice  to  all  girls  and  all  unmarried  women,  whether  in  affluent  homes  or 
in  homes  where  most  astringent  economies  are  grinding,  is  to  learn  to  do  some 
kind  of  work  that  the  world  must  have  while  the  world  stands.  I  am  glad  to  see 
a  marvelous  change  for  the  better,  and  that  women  have  found  out  that  there  are 
hundreds  of  practical  things  that  a  woman  can  do  for  a  living  if  she  begin  soon 
enough,  and  that  men  have  been  compelled  to  admit  it.  You  and  I  can  remember 
when  the  majority  of  occupations  were  thought  inappropriate  for  women,  but  our 
Civil  War  came  and  the  hosts  of  men  went  forth  from  North  and  South,  and  to 
conduct  the  business  of  our  cities  during  the  patriotic  absence,  women  were 
demanded  by  the  tens  of  thousands  to  take  the  vacant  places,  and  multitudes  of 
women  who  had  been  hitherto  supported  by  fathers,  and  brothers,  and  sons,  were 
compelled  thenceforth  to  take  care  of  themselves.  From  that  time  a  mighty 
change  took  place,  favorable  to  female  employment. 

APPROPRIATE  OCCUPATIONS. 

Among  the  occupations  appropriate  for  women  I  place  the  following,  into 
many  of  which  she  has  already  entered,  and  all  the  others  she  will  enter:  Sten- 
ography, and  you  may  find  her  at  nearly  all  the  reportorial  stands  in  our  educa- 
tional, political  and  religious  meetings.  Savings  banks,  the  work  clean  and  hon- 
orable, and  who  so  great  a  right  to  toil  there  ?  for  a  woman  founded  the  first 
savings  bank,  Mrs.  Priscilla  Wakefield.  Copyists,  and  there  is  hardly  a  profes- 
sional man  that  does  not  need  the  service  of  her  penmanship,  and,  as  amanuensis, 
many  of  the  greatest  books  of  our  day  have  been  dictated  for  her  writing.  There 
they  are  as  florists,  and  confectioners,  and  music  teachers,  and  stationers,  and  book- 
keepers, for  which  they  are  specially  qualified  by  patience  and  accuracy;  and  in 


GIFT  OF  BRIDEGROOM. 


C107) 


io8  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

wood  engraving,  in  which  the  Cooper  Institute  has  turned  out  so  many  qualified; 
and  telegraphy,  for  which  she  is  specially  prepared,  as  thousands  of  the  telegraphic 
ofiices  would  testify.  Photography,  and  in  nearly  all  our  establishments  they  may 
be  found  there  at  cheerful  work.  As  workers  in  ivory,  and  gutta-percha,  and  gum- 
elastic,  and  tortoise-shell,  and  gilding,  and  in  chemicals,  in  porcelain,  in  terra  cotta, 
in  embroidery.  As  postmistresses,  and  the  President  is  giving  them  appointments 
all  over  the  land.  As  keepers  of  light-houses,  many  of  tliem,  if  they  had  the 
chance,  ready  to  do  as  brave  a  thing  with  oar  and  boat  as  did  Ida  Lewis  and 
Grace  Darling.  As  proof-readers,  as  translators,  as  modellers,  as  designers,  as 
draught- women,  as  lithographers,  as  teachers  in  schools  and  seminaries,  for  which 
t^iey  are  specially  endowed,  the  first  teacher  of  every  child,  by  divine  arrangement, 
being  a  woman.  As  physicians,  having  graduated  after  a  regular  course  of  study 
from  the  female  colleges  of  our  large  cities,  where  they  get  as  scientific  and  thor- 
ough preparation  as  any  doctors  ever  had,  and  go  forth  to  a  work  which  no  one 
but  women  could  so  appropriately  or  delicately  do.  On  the  lecturing  platform, 
for  you  know  the  brilliant  success  of  Mrs.  Livermore,  and  Mrs.  Hollowell,  and 
Mrs.  Willard,  and  Mrs.  Lathrop.  As  physiological  lecturers  to  their  own  sex,  for 
which  service  there  is  a  demand  appalling  and  terrific.  As  preachers  of  the  gospel 
and  all  the  protests  of  ecclesiastical  courts  cannot  hinder  them,  for  they  have  a 
pathos  and  a  power  in  their  religious  utterances  that  men  can  never  reach.  Wit- 
ness all  those  who  have  heard  their  mother  pray. 

O  young  women  of  America,  as  many  of  3'ou  will  have  to  fight  your  own 
battles  alone,  do  not  wait  imtil  you  are  flung  by  disaster  upon  the  world;  until 
your  father  is  dead,  and  all  the  resources  of  your  family  have  been  scattered,  but 
now,  while  in  good  house  and  environed  by  all  prosperities,  learn  how  to  do  some 
kind  of  work  that  the  world  must  have  as  long  as  the  world  stands.  Turn  your 
attention  from  the  embroidery  of  fine  slippers,  of  whicli  there  is  a  surplus,  and 
make  the  useful  shoe.  Expend  the  time  in  which  you  adorn  a  cigar  case  in  learn- 
ing how  to  make  a  good,  honest  loaf  of  bread.  Turn  your  attention  from  the 
making  of  flimsy  nothings  to  the  manufacturing  of  important  somethings. 

Much  of  the  time  spent  in  young  ladies'  seminaries  in  studying  what  are 
called  the  "  higher  branches,"  might  better  be  expended  in  teaching  them  some- 
thing by  which  they  could  support  themselves.  If  you  are  going  to  be  teachers, 
or  if  you  have  so  much  assured  wealth  that  you  can  always  dwell  in  those  high 
regions,  trigonometery,  of  course,  metaphysics,  of  course,  Latin,  and  Greek,  and 
German,  and  French,  and  Italian,  of  course,  and  a  hundred  other  things,  of  course, 
but  if  you  are  not  expecting  to  teach,  and  your  wealth  is  not  established  be^^ond 
misfortune,  after  you  have  learned  the  ordinary  branches,  take  hold  of  that  kind 
of  study  that  will  pay  in  dollars  and  cents  in  case  you  are  thrown  on  your  own 
resources.     Learn   to  do  something   better  than   anybody  else.      Buy   Virginia 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  IvIFE. 


rogj 


Penny's  book  entitled  "  The  Employments  of  Women,"  and  learn  there  are  50Q 
ways  in  which  a  woman  may  earn  a  living. 

ROMANTIC  IDEAS. 

"No,  no!"  says  some  young  woman;  "  I  will  not  undertake  anything  so 
unromantic  and  commonplace  as  that. ' '  An  excellent  author  writes  that  after  he 
had,  in  a  book,  argued   for  efficiency  in  womanly  work  in  order  to  success,  and 


IDLENESS. 

positive  apprenticeship  by  way  of  preparation,  a  prominent  chemist  advertised 
that  he  would  teach  a  class  of  women  to  become  druggists  and  apothecaries  if  they 
would  go  through  an  apprenticeship  as  men  do;  and  a  printer  advertised  that  he 
would  take  a  class  of  women  to  learn  the  printer's  trade  if  they  would  go  through 
an  apprenticeship   as  men  do;    and  how  many,  according  to  the  account  of  the 


no  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

authoress,  do  you  suppose  applied  to  become  skilled  in  the  druggist  business  and 
printing  business  ?  Not  one  !  One  young  woman  said  she  would  be  willing  to 
try  the  printing  business  for  six  months,  but  by  that  time  her  older  sister  would 
be  married,  and  then  her  mother  would  want  her  at  home.  My  sisters,  it  will  be 
skilled  womanly  labor  that  will  finally  triumph. 

"  But,"  you  ask,  "  what  would  my  father  and  mother  say  if  they  saw  I  was 
doing  such  unfashionable  work  ?' '  Throw  the  whole  responsibility  upon  the  pas- 
tor of  the  Brooklyn  Tabernacle,  who  is  constantly  hearing  of  young  women  in  all 
these  cities  who  unqualified  by  their  previous  luxurious  surroundings  for  the 
awful  struggle  of  life  into  which  they  have  been  suddenly  hurled,  seemed  to  have 
nothing  left  them  but  a  choice  between  starvation  and  danuiation.  There  they 
go  along  the  street  seven  o'clock  in  the  wintry  mornings,  through  the  slush  and 
storm,  to  the  place  where  they  shall  earn  only  half  enough  for  subsistence,  the 
daughters  of  once  prosperous  merchants,  lawyers,  clergymen,  artists,  bankers  and 
capitalists  who  brought  up  their  children  under  the  infernal  delusion  that  it  was 
not  high-toned  for  women  to  learn  a  profitable  calling.  Young  women,  take  this 
affair  in  your  own  hands  and  let  there  be  an  insurrection  in  all  prosperous  families 
of  Brooklyn  and  New  York  and  Christendom  on  the  part  of  the  daughters  of  this 
day,  demanding  knowledge  in  occupations  and  styles  of  business  by  which  they 
may  be  their  own  defence  and  their  own  support  if  all  fatherly  and  husbandly  and 
brotherly  hands  forever  fail  them. 

I  have  seen  two  sad  sights — the  one  a  woman  in  all  the  glory  of  her  j-oung 
life  stricken  by  disease,  and  in  a  week  lifeless  in  a  home  of  which  she  had  been 
the  pride.  As  her  hands  were  folded  over  the  still  heart  and  her  eyes  closed  for 
the  last  slumber,  and  she  was  taken  out  amid  the  lamentations  of  kindred  and 
friends,  I  thought  that  was  a  sadness  immeasurable.  But  I  have  seen  something 
compared  with  which  that  scene  was  bright  and  songful.  It  was  a  young  woman 
who  had  been  all  her  days  amid  wealthy  surroundings,  by  the  visit  of  death  and 
bankruptcy  to  the  household  turned  out  on  a  cold  world  without  one  lesson  about 
how  to  get  food  or  shelter,  and  into  the  awful  whirlpool  of  city  life  where  strong 
ships  have  gone  down,  and  for  twenty  years  not  one  word  has  been  heard  from 
her.  Vessels  recently  went  out  on  the  Atlantic  Ocean  looking  for  a  shipwrecked 
craft  that  was  left  alone  and  forsaken  on  the  sea,  with  the  idea  of  bringing  it  into 
port.  But  who  shall  ever  bring  again  into  the  harbor  of  peace  and  hope  and 
heaven  that  lost  womanly  immortal,  driven  into  what  tempest,  aflame  in  what 
conflagration,  sinking  into  what  abyss?     O  God,  help  !     O  Christ,  rescue  ! 

WOMEN'S  WAGES  TO   INCREASE. 

My  sisters,  give  not  your  time  to  learning  fancy  work  which  the  world  may 
dispense  with  when  hard  times  come,  but  connect  your  skill  with  the  indispensables 


"woman,  BEHOI^D  thy  son;  BEHOI.D  THY  MOTHER." — JOHN  xix.  26.     (m^ 


112 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


of    life.      The   world    will 
always  want  something  to 
wear,  and  something  to  eat, 
and  shelter  and  fuel  for  the 
body,    and    knowledge   for 
the  mind,   and   religion  for 
the   soul.       And    all    these 
things  will  continue  to  be 
the  necessaries,  and  if  you 
fasten   your   energies   upon 
occupations  and  professions 
thus  related  the  world  will 
be    unable    to   do   without 
you.      Remember    that    in 
proportion  as  you  are  skill- 
ful in    anything  your 
rivalries  become   less. 
For     unskilled      toil, 
women  by  the  million. 
But  you  may  rise  to 
where  there  are  only 
a  thousand  ;   and  still 
higher  till    there    are 
only   a   hundred;  and 
still  higher  until  there 
are  only  ten;   and  still 
higher   in    some   par- 
ticular department  till 
there    is   only    a    unit 
and  that  yourself.  For 
a  while  you  may  keep 
wages    and     a    place 
through     the     kindly 
sympathies  of  an  em- 
ployer,  but   you    will 
eventually  get  no  more 
compensation  than 
you  can    make    your- 
self worth. 


THK  sisti:ks  ()!••  liivTHANV. — FroiH  Marble  Giouh  b^  J.  W.  Wood. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE.  115 

Let  me  say  to  all  women  who  have  already  entered  upon  the  battle  of  life  that 
the  time  is  coming  when  woman  shall  not  only  get  as  much  salary  and  wages  as 
men  get,  but  for  certain  styles  of  employment  women  will,  have  higher  salary  and 
more  wages,  for  the  reason  that  for  some  styles  of  work  they  have  more  adaptation. 
But  this  justice  will  come  to  woman  not  through  any  sentiment  of  gallantry',  not 
because  woman  is  physically  weaker  than  man  and  therefore  ought  to  have  more 
consideration  shown  her,  but  because  through  her  finer  natural  taste  and  more 
grace  of  manner  and  quicker  perception  and  more  delicate  touch  and  more  educated 
adroitness  she  will,  in  certain  callings,  be  to  her  employer  worth  10  per  cent 
more,  or  20  per  cent  more  than  the  other  sex.  She  will  not  get  it  by  asking  for 
it,  but  by  earning  it,  and  it  shall  be  hers  by  lawful  conquest. 

Now,  men  of  America,  be  fair  and  give  the  women  a  chance  !  Are  3^ou  afraid 
that  they  will  do  some  of  your  work,  and  hence  harm  your  prosperities  ?  Remem- 
ber that  there  are  scores  of  thousands  of  men  doing  women's  work.  Do  not  be 
afraid !  God  knows  the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  He  knows  how  many  people 
this  world  can  feed  and  shelter,  and  when  it  gets  too  full  He  will  end  the  world, 
and,  if  need  be,  start  another.  God  will  halt  the  inventive  faculty,  which,  by 
producing  a  machine  that  will  do  the  work  of  ten  or  twenty  or  100  men  and 
women,  will  leave  that  number  of  people  without  work.  I  hope  that  there  will 
not  be  invented  another  sewing  machine,  or  reaping  machine,  or  corn  thresher,  or 
any  other  new  machine  for  the  next  500  years.  We  want  no  more  wooden  hands, 
and  iron  hands,  and  steel  hands,  and  electric  hands  substituted  for  men  and  women 
who  would  otherwise  do  the  work  and  get  the  pay  and  earn  the  livelihood. 

.e WOMEN  WHO   HAVE  WON  THE  DAY. 

But  God  will  arrange  all,  and  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  do  our  best  and  trust 
Him  for  the  rest.  Let  me  cheer  all  women  fighting  the  battle  of  life  alone  with 
the  fact  that  thousands  of  women  have,  in  that  wa}^,  won  the  day.  And  tens  of 
thousands  of  women  of  whose  bravery  and  self-sacrifice  and  glory  of  character  the 
world  has  made  no  record,  but  whose  deeds  are  in  the  heavenly  archives  of 
martyrs,  who  fought  the  battle  alone  and,  though  unrecognized  for  the  short 
thirty  or  fifty  or  eighty  years  of  their  earthly  existence,  shall,  through  the  quin- 
tillion  ages  of  the  higher  world,  be  pointed  out  with  the  admiring  cry  "These  are 
they  who  have  won  a  tribute  from  mankind  and  a  blessing  of  God  by  the  force  of 
their  own  genius,  by  the  persistency  of  their  faith,  by  duties  well  performed." 

Let  me  also  say  for  the  encouragement  of  all  women  fighting  the  battle  of 

life  alone  that  their  conflict  will  soon  end.     There  is  one  word  written  over  the 

faces  of  many  of  them,  and  that  word  is.  Despair.     My  sister,  you  need  appeal 

to  that  Christ  who  comforted  the  sisters  of  Bethany  in  their  domestic  trouble,  and 

who  in  His  last  hours  forgot  all  the  pangs  of  His  own  hands  and  feet  and  heart  as 
8 


lU 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  IJFE. 


He  looked  into  the  face  of  maternal  anguish,  and  called  a  friend's  attention  to  it, 
in  substance  saying  :  "John,  I  cannot  take  care  of  her  any  longer.  Do  for  her  as  I 
would  have  done  if  I  had  lived.  Behold  thy  mother !  "  If,  under  the  pressure  of 
unrewarded  and  unappreciated  work,  your  hair  is  whitening  and  the  wrinkles 
come,  rejoice  that  you  are  nearing  the  hour  of  escape  from  your  very  last  fatigue, 
and  may  your  departure  be  as  pleasant  as  that  of  Isabella  Graham,  who  closed  her 
life  with  a  smile  and  the  word  "Peace."  The  daughter  of  a  regiment  in  any 
army  is  all  surrounded  by  bayonets  of  defence,  and  in  the  battle,  whoever  falls,  she 
is  kept  safe.  And  you  are  the  daughter  of  the  regiment  commanded  by  the  Lord 
of  hosts.  After  all,  you  are  not  fighting  the  battle  of  life  alone.  All  heaven  is  on 
your  side. 


UNHAPPY   MARRIAGES,   AND   HOW  THEY  MAY  BE  AVOIDED. 

aBIyE  biography  introduces  to  our  notice  a  drunken  bloat 
owning  a  large  propert}-.  Before  the  day  of  safety  deposits 
and  government  bonds  and  national  banks,  people  had  their 
investments  in  flocks  and  herds,  and  a  certain  man,  named 
Nabal,  had  much  of  his  possessions  in  live  stock.  He 
came  also  of  a  distinguished  family  and  had  glorious 
Caleb  for  an  ancestor.  But  this  descendant  was  a  sneak, 
a  churl,  a  sot  and  a  fool.  One  instance,  to  illustrate  : 
It  was  a  wool-raising  country,  and  at  the  time  of  shear- 
ing a  great  feast  was  prepared  for  the  shearer;  and 
David  and  his  warriors,  who  had  in  other  days  saved  from  destruction  the  thresh- 
ing floors  of  Nabal,  sent  to  him  asking,  in  this  time  of  plenty,  for  some  bread  for 
their  starving  men.  And  Nabal  cried  out:  "Who  is  David?"  As  though  an 
Englishman  had  said:  "  Who  is  Wellington  ?"  or  a  German  should  say:  "Who 
is  Von  Moltke?"  or  an  American  should  say  :  "  Who  is  Washington  ?"  Nothing 
did  Nabal  give  to  the  starving  men,  and  that  night  the  scoundrel  lay  dead  drunk 
at  home,  and  the  Bible  gives  us  a  full-length  picture  of  him  sprawling  and  maud- 
lin and  helpless. 

Now  that  was  the  man  whom  Abigail,  the  lovely  and  gracious  and  good 
woman,  married— a  tuberose  planted  beside  a  thistle,  a  palm  branch  twined  into  a 
wreath  of  deadly  nightshade.  Surely  that  was  not  one  of  the  matches  made  in 
heaven.  We  throw  up  our  hands  in  horror  at  that  wedding.  How  did  she  ever 
consent  to  link  her  destinies  with  such  a  creature  ?  Well,  she  no  doubt  thought  that 
it  would  be  an  honor  to  be  associated  with  an  aristocratic  family  and  no  one  can 
despise  a  great  name.  Beside  this,  wealth  would  come,  and  with  it  chains  of  gold 
and  mansions  lighted  by  swinging  lamps  of  aromatic  oil,  and  resounding  with  the 
cheer  of  banqueters  seated  at  tables  laden  with  wines  from  the  richest  vineyards, 
and  fruits  from  ripest  orchards,  and  nuts  threshed  from  foreign  woods,  and  meats 
smoking  in  platters  of  gold  set  on  by  slaves  in  bright  uniform.  Before  she 
plighted  her  troth  with  this  dissipated  man  she  sometimes  said  to  herself:  ' '  How 
can  I  endure  him  ?  To  be  associated  for  life  with  such  a  debauchee  I  cannot  and 
will  not !"  But  then  again  she  said  to  herself:  "  It  is  time  I  was  married,  and 
this  is  a  cold  world  to  depend  on,  and  perhaps  I  might  do  worse,  and  may  be  I 

("5) 


ii6  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

will  make  a  sober  man  outof  liim,  and  marriage  is  a  lottery  anyhow."  And  when 
one  day  this  representative  of  a  great  house  presented  himself  in  a  parenthesis  of 
sobriety,  and  with  an  assumed  geniality  and  gallantry  of  manner,  and  with 
promises  of  fidelity  and  kindness  and  self-abnegation,  a  June  morning  smiled  on 
a  March  squall,  and  the  great-souled  woman  surrendered  her  happiness  to  the 
keeping  of  this  infamous  son  of  fortune  whose  possessions  were  in  Carmel-  and  the 
man  was  ver>'  great,  and  he  had  3000  sheep  and  1000  goats. 

AN   EVERY-DAY  TRAGEDY. 

Behold  here  a  domestic  tragedy  repeated  every  hour  of  every  day  all  over 
Christendom — marriage  for  worldly  success  without  regard  to  character.  So 
Marie  Jeanne  Philpon,  the  daughter  of  the  humble  engraver  of  Paris,  became  the 
famous  Mme.  Roland  of  history,  the  vivacious  and  brilliant  girl  united  with  the 
cold,  formal,  monotonous  man  because  he  came  of  an  affluent  family  of  Amiens 
and  had  lordly  blood  in  his  veins.  The  day,  when  through  political  revolution, 
this  patriotic  woman  was  led  to  the  scaffold  around  which  lay  piles  of  human 
heads  that  had  fallen  from  the  axe,  she  said  to  an  aged  man  whom  she  had  com- 
forted: "  Go  first  that  you  may  not  witness  my  death,"  and  then  undaunted  took 
her  turn  to  die — that  day  was  to  her  only  the  last  act  of  a  tragedy  of  which  her 
uncongenial  marriage  day  was  the  first. 

Good  and  genial  character  in  a  man  is  the  very  first  requisite  for  a  woman's 
happy  marriage.  Mistake  me  not  as  depreciative  of  worldly  prosperities.  There 
is  a  religious  cant  that  would  seem  to  represent  povertj'  as  a  virtue  and  wealth  as 
a  crime.  I  can  take  you  through  a  thousand  mansions  where  God  is  as  much 
worshiped  as  He  ever  was  in  a  cabin.  The  gospel  inculcates  the  virtues  which 
tend  toward  wealth.  In  the  millennium  we  will  all  dwell  in  palaces  and  ride  in 
chariots,  and  sit  at  sumptuous  banquets,  and  .sleep  under  rich  embroideries,  and 
live  400  or  500  years;  for  if,  according  to  the  Bible,  in  those  times  a  child  shall 
die  100  years  old,  the  average  of  human  life  will  be  at  least  five  centuries.  The 
whole  tendency  of  sin  is  toward  poverty,  and  the  whole  tendency  of  righteousness 
is  toward  wealth.  Godliness  is  profitable  for  the  life  that  now  is  as  well  as  for  that 
which  is  to  come.  No  inventory  can  be  made  of  the  picture  galleries  consecrated 
to  God,  and  of  sculpture  and  of  libraries  and  pillared  magnificence,  and  of  parks 
and  fountains  and  gardens  in  the  ownership  of  good  men  and  women.  The  two 
most  lordly  residences  in  which  I  was  ever  a  guest  had  morning  and  evening 
prayers,  all  the  employes  present,  and  all  day  long  there  was  an  air  of  cheerful 
piety  in  the  conversation  and  behavior.  Lord  Radstock  carried  the  gospel  to  the 
Russian  nobility.  Lord  Cavan  and  Lord  Cairns  spent  their  vacation  in  evangelis- 
tic .ser^'ices.  Lord  Congleton  became  missionary  to  Bagdad.  And  the  Christ  who 
was  born  in  an  Eastern  caravansary  has  again  and  again  lived  in  a  palace. 


I  mi' 

m  vi'-i''-;!  .','.1' 


mil  m 


1        ,L    I     II   III  I'll 

iiiiiiikiiiiHiiiiiii^iiiiiyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^^^        iiiiiiiiiiiiii 

SINGLE    AND    H\PPY 


1117) 


Ii8 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 


It  is  a  grand  tiling  to  have  plent}-  of  money,  and  horses  that  don't  compel 
you  to  take  the  dust  of  every  lumbering  and  lazy  vehicle,  and  books  of  history 


EVENING  c\hM.—.ljler  a  Paintitig  by  H.  Kaulbach. 
that  give  you  a  glimpse  of  all  the  past,  and  shelves  of  poetry  to  wliich  you  may 
go  and  ask  Milton,  or  Tennyson,  or  Spenser,  or  Tom  Moore,  or  Robert  Bums  to 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


119 


step  down  and  spend  and  evening 
with  you ;  and  other  shelves  to  which 
you  may  go  while  j'ou  feel  disgusted 
with  the  shams  of  the  world  and  ask 
Thackeray  to  express  your  chagrin, 
or  Charles  Dickens  to  expose  the 
Pecksniffianism,  or  Thomas  Carlyle 
to  thunder  your  indignation,  or  the 
other  shelves  where  the  old  gospel 
writers  stand  ready  to  warm  and 
cheer  us  while  they  open  doors  into 
that  city  which  is  so  bright  the 
noonday  sun  is  abolished. 

There  is  no  virtue  in  owning  a 
horse  that  takes  four  minutes  to  go 
a  mile  if  you  can  own  one  that  can 
go  in  a  little  over  two  minutes  and 
a  half;  no  virtue  in  running  into 
the  teeth  of  a  northeast  wind  with 
thin  apparel  if  you  can  aiford  furs; 
no  virtue  in  being  poor  when  you 
can  honestly  be  rich.  There  are 
names  of  men  and  women  that  I 
have  only  to  mention,  and  they  sug- 
gest not  only  wealth,  but  religion 
and  generosity  and  philanthropy, 
such  as  Amos  Lawrence,  James 
Lennox,  Peter  Cooper,  William  H. 
Dodge,  Shaftesbury,  Miss  Wolfe  and 
Mrs.  Astor. 

If  there  be  good  moral  charac- 
ter, accompanied  by  affluent  circum- 
stances, I  congratulate  you.  If 
not,  let  the  morning  lark  fly  clear 
of  the  Rocky  Mountain  eagle.  The 
sacrifice  of  woman  on  the  altar  of 
social  and  financial  expectation  is 
cruel  and  stupendous.  I  sketch  you 
a  scene  you  have  more  than  once 
witnessed. 


I20  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

A   PICTURE  FROM    LIFE. 

A  comfortable  home,  with  nothing  more  than  ordinary  surroundings,  but  an 
attractive  daughter  carefully  and  Christianly  reared.  From  the  outside  world 
comes  in  a  man  with  nothing  but  money^unless  you  count  profanity  and  selfish- 
ness and  fondness  for  champagne  and  general  recklessness  as  a  part  of  his 
possessions.  He  has  his  coat  collar  turned  up  when  there  is  no  chill  in  the  air, 
but  because  it  gives  him  an  air  of  abandon;  and  eye-glass,  not  because  he  is  near- 
sighted, but  because  it  gives  a  classical  appearance;  and  with  an  attire  somewhat  loud, 
a  cane  thick  enough  to  be  the  club  of  Hercules  and  clutched  at  the  middle,  his 
conversation  interlarded  with  French  phrases  inaccurately  pronounced,  and  a 
sweep  of  manner  indicating  that  he  was  not  born  like  most  folks,  but  terrestrially 
landed.  By  arts  learned  of  the  devil  he  insinuates  himself  into  the  affections  of 
the  daughter  of  that  Christian  home.  All  the  kindred  congratulate  her  on  the 
almost  supernaturally  bright  prospects.  Reports  come  in  that  the  young  man  is 
fast  in  his  habits;  that  he  has  broken  several  young  hearts,  and  that  he  is  mean 
and  selfish  and  cruel.  But  all  this  is  covered  up  with  the  fact  that  he  has  several 
houses  in  his  own  name,  and  has  large  deposits  at  the  bank,  and,  more  than  all, 
has  a  father  worth  many  hundred  thousand  dollars  and  ver^'  feeble  in  health,  and 
may  any  day  drop  off,  and  this  is  the  only  son,  and  a  round  dollar  held  close  to 
one's  eye  is  large  enough  to  shut  out  a  great  desert,  and  how  much  more  will 
several  bushels  of  dollars  shut  out. 

The  marriage  day  comes  and  goes.  The  wedding  ring  was  costly  enough, 
and  the  orange  blossoms  fragrant  enough,  and  the  benediction  solemn  enough, 
and  the  wedding  march  stirring  enough.  And  the  audience  shed  tears  of  sympa- 
thetic gladness,  supposing  that  the  craft  containing  the  two  has  sailed  oflf  on  a 
placid  lake,  although  God  knows  that  they  are  launched  on  a  dead  sea,  its  waters 
brackish  with  tears,  and  ghastly  with  faces  of  despair  floating  to  the  surface  and 
then  going  down.  There  they  are,  the  newly  married  pair  in  their  new  home. 
He  turns  out  to  be  a  tyrant.  Her  will  is  nothing,  his  will  everything.  Lavish  of 
money  for  his  own  pleasure,  he  begrudges  her  the  pennies  he  pinches  out  into  her 
trembling  palm.  Instead  of  the  kind  words  she  left  behind  in  her  former  home, 
now  there  are  complaints  and  fault-findings  and  curses.  He  is  the  master  and  she 
the  .slave.  The  worst  villain  on  earth  is  the  man  who,  having  captured  a  woman 
from  her  father's  house,  and  after  the  oath  of  the  marriage  altar  has  been  pronounced, 
says,  by  his  manner  if  not  in  words:  "  I  have  you  now  in  my  power.  What  can 
you  do  ?  My  arm  is  stronger  than  yours.  My  voice  is  louder  than  5-ours.  My 
fortune  is  greater  than  yours.  My  name  is  mightier  than  yours.  Now  crouch 
before  me  like  a  dog.  Now  crawl  away  from  me  like  a  reptile.  You  are  nothing 
but  a  woman,  anyhow.  Down,  you  miserable  wretch  !"  Can  halls  of  mosaic, 
can  long  lines  of  litruscan  bronze,  or  statuar)'  by  Palmer  and  Powers  and  Crawford 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  121 

and  Chantty  and  Canova,  can  galleries  rich  from  the  pencil  of  Bierstadt  and 
Church  and  Kenset  and  Cole  and  Cropse}',  could  violins  played  on  b}'  an  Ole  Btdl, 
or  pianos  fingered  by  a  Gottschalk,  or  solos  warbled  by  a  Sontag,  could  wardrobes 
like  that  of  a  Marie  Antoinette,  could  jewels  like  those  of  a  Eugenie  make  a  wife 
in  such  a  companionship  happy  ? 

Imprisoned  in  a  castle  !  Her  gold  bracelets  are  the  chains  of  a  lifelong  ser\d- 
tude.  There  is  a  sword  over  her  every  feast,  not  like  that  of  Damocles,  staying 
suspended,  but  dropping  through  her  lacerated  heart.  Her  wardrobe  is  full  of 
shrouds  for  deaths  which  she  dies  daily,  and  she  is  buried  alive  though  buried 
under  gorgeous  upholster3\  There  is  one  word  that  sounds  under  the  arches,  and 
rolls  along  the  corridors,  and  weeps  in  the  falling  fountains,  and  echoes  in  the 
shutting  of  every  door,  and  groans  in  every  note  of  stringed  and  wind  instrument: 
"Woe!  Woe!"  The  oxen  and  sheep  in  olden  time  brought  to  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  to  be  sacrificed  used  to  be  covered  with  ribbons  and  flowers,  ribbons  on  the 
horns  and  flowers  on  the  neck.  But  the  floral  and  ribboned  decorations  did  not 
make  the  stab  of  the  butcher's  knife  less  deathful,  and  all  the  chandeliers  you  hang 
over  such  a  woman,  and  all  the  robes  with  which  you  enwrap  her,  and  all  the 
ribbons  with  which  you  adorn  her,  and  all  the  bewitching  charms  with  which  you 
embank  her  footsteps,  are  the  ribbons  and  flowers  of  a  horrible  butchery. 

TWO  DUCAL  PALACES. 

As  if  to  show  how  wretched  a  good  woman  may  be  in  splendid  surroundings 
we  have  two  recent  illustrations,  two  ducal  palaces  in  Great  Britain.  Each  is  a 
focus  of  the  best  things  that  are  possible  in  art,  in  literature,  in  architecture,  the 
accumulation  of  other  estates  until  their  wealth  is  beyond  calculation,  and  their 
grandeur  beyond  description.  One  of  the  castles  has  a  cabinet  set  with  gems  that 
cost  $2,500,000,  and  the  walls  of  it  bloom  with  Rembrandts  and  Claudes  and 
Poussins  and  Guidos  and  Raphaels,  and  there  are  Southdown  flocks  in  summer 
grazing  on  its  lawns  and  Arab  steeds  prancing  at  the  doorways  on  the  ' '  first  open 
day  at  the  kennels. ' '  From  the  one  castle  the  Duchess  has  removed  with  her 
children  because  she  can  no  longer  endure  the  orgies  of  her  husband,  the  Duke, 
and  in  the  other  castle  the  Duchess  remains  confronted  by  insults  and  abominations 
in  the  presence  of  which  I  do  not  think  God  or  decent  society  requires  a  good 
woman  to  remain.  Alas,  for  these  ducal  country  seats  !  They,  on  a  large  scale, 
illustrate  what  on  a  smaller  scale,  may  be  seen  in  man}^  places,  that  without  moral 
character  in  a  husband  all  the  accessories  of  wealth  are  to  a  wife's  soul  tantalization 
and  mockery.  When  Abigail  finds  Nabal,  her  husband,  beastly  drunk  as  she 
comes  home  from  interceding  for  Vie  fortune  and  life,  it  was  no  alleviation  that  the 
old  brute  had  possessions  in  Carmel,  and  "  was  verj- great,  and  had  3000  sheep 
and  1000  goats,"  and  he,  the  worst  goat  among  them.  The  animal  in  his  nature 
seized  the  soul  in  its  mouth  and  ran  off  with  it. 


122  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Before  things  are  right  in  this  world,  genteel  villains  are  to  be  expurgated. 
Instead  of  being  welcomed  into  respectable  society  because  of  the  amount  of  stars 
and  garters  and  medals  and  estates  they  represent,  they  ought  to  be  fumigated 
two  or  three  years  before  they  are  allowed,  without  peril  to  themselves,  to  put 
their  hand  on  the  door-knob  of  a  moral  house.  The  time  must  come  when  a 
masculine  estray  will  be  as  repugnant  to  good  society  as  a  feminine  estray,  and  no 
coat  of  arms  or  family  emblazonry  or  epaulet  can  pass  a  Lothario  unchallenged 
among  the  sanctities  of  home  life.  By  what  law  of  God  or  common  sense  is  an 
Absalom  better  than  a  Delilah,  a  Don  Juan  better  than  a  Messalina  ?  The  brush 
that  paints  the  one  black  must  paint  the  other  black.  But  what  a  spectacle  it  was 
when  one  summer  much  of  watering-place  society  went  wild  with  enthusiasm  over 
an  unclean  foreign  dignitary  whose  name  in  both  hemispheres  is  a  synonym  for 
profligacy,  and  princesses  of  American  society  from  all  parts  of  the  land  had  him 
ride  in  their  carriages  and  sit  at  their  tables,  though  they  knew  him  to  be  a 
portable  lazaretto,  a  charnel  house  of  moral  putrefacation,  his  breath  a  typhoid, 
his  foot  that  of  a  satyr,  and  his  touch  death.  Here  is  an  evil  that  men  cannot 
stop,  but  women  may.  Keep  all  such  out  of  your  parlors,  have  no  recognition 
for  them  in  the  street,  and  no  more  think  of  allying  your  life  and  destiny  with 
theirs  than  "  gales  from  Araby  "  would  consent  to  pass  the  honeymoon  with  an 
Egyptian  plague.  All  the  money  or  social  position  a  bad  man  brings  to  a  woman 
in  marriage  is  a  splendid  despair,  a  gilded  horror,  a  brilliant  agony,  a  prolonged 
death,  and  the  longer  the  marital  union  lasts  the  more  evident  will  be  the  fact 
that  she  might  better  never  have  been  born.  Yet  you  and  I  have  been  at  brilliant 
weddings  where,  before  the  feast  was  over,  the  bridegroom's  tongue  was  thick 
and  his  eye  glassy  and  his  step  a  stagger,  as  he  clicked  glasses  with  jolly  com- 
rades, all  going  with  lightning  limited  express  train  to  the  fatal  crash  over  the 
embankment  of  a  ruined  life  and  a  lost  eternity. 

Woman,  join  not  your  right  hand  with  such  a  right  hand.     Accept  from 

such  a  one  no  jewel  for  finger  or  ear,  hist  that  sparkle  of  precious  stone  turn  out 

to  be  the  eye  of  a  basilisk;  and  let  not  the  ring  come  on  the  finger  of  your  right 

hand,  lest  that  ring  turn  out  to  be  one  link  of  a  chain  that  shall  bind  you  in 

never-ending  captivity.     In  the  name  of  God  and  Heaven  and  home,  in  the  name 

of  all  time  and  all  eternity,  I  forbid  the  V)anns  !     Consent  not  to  join  one  of  the 

many  regiments  of  women  who  have  married  for  worldly  success,  without  regard 

to  moral  character. 

A  ROYAL  MARRIAGE. 

If  you  are  ambitious,  O  woman,  for  noble  affiancing,  why  not  marr>-  a  king? 
And  to  that  honor  you  are  invited  by  the  monarch  of  heaven  and  earth.  And 
this  day  a  voice  from  the  skies  sounds  forth:  "As  the  bridegroom  rejoiceth  over 
the  bride  so  shall  thy  God  rejoice  over  thee."     Let  Him  put  upon  thee  the  ring 


THE  SOURNESS   OF  POVHRTV. 


(123) 


124  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFK. 

of  this  royal  marriage.  Here  is  an  honor  worth  reaching  after.  By  repentance 
and  faith  you  may  come  into  a  marriage  with  the  Emperor  of  universal  dominion, 
and  you  may  be  an  empress  unto  God  forever  and  reign  with  Him  in  palaces  that 
the  centuries  cannot  crumble  or  cannonades  demolish.  High  worldly  marriage  is 
not  necessary  for  women,  or  marriage  of  an)^  kind,  in  order  to  your  happiness. 
Celibacy  has  been  honored  ])y  the  best  being  that  ever  lived  and  His  greatest 
apostle — Christ  and  Paul.  What  higher  honor  could  single  life  on  earth  have  ? 
But  what  you  need,  O  woman,  is  to  be  affianced  forever  and  forever,  and  the 
banns  of  that  marriage  the  angels  will  publish  in  hosannas  of  rejoicing. 

One  of  the  most  stirring  passages  in  histor}^  with  which  I  am  acquainted 
tells  us  how  Cleopatra,  the  exiled  queen  of  Egypt,  won  the  sj^mpathy  of  Julius 
Caesar,  the  conqueror,  until  he  became  the  bridegroom  and  she  the  bride.  Driven 
from  her  throne,  she  sailed  away  on  the  Mediterranean  Sea  in  a  storm,  and  when 
the  large  ship  anchored  she  put  out  with  one  womanly  friend  in  a  small  boat  until 
she  arrived  at  Alexandria,  where  was  Caesar,  the  great  general.  Knowing  that 
she  would  not  be  permitted  to  land  or  pass  the  guards  on  the  way  to  Caesar's 
palace,  she  laid  upon  the  bottom  of  the  boat  some  shawls  and  scarfs  and  richly 
dyed  upholstery,  and  then  lay  down  upon  them,  and  her  friend  wrapped  her  in 
them,  and  she  was  admitted  ashore  in  this  wrapping  of  goods,  which  was 
announced  as  a  present  for  Caesar.  This  bundle  was  permitted  to  pass  the  guards 
of  the  gates  of  the  palace,  and  was  put  down  at  the  feet  of  the  Roman  general. 
When  the  bundle  was  unrolled  there  rose  before  Caesar  one  whose  courage  and 
beauty  and  brilliancy  are  the  astonishment  of  the  ages.  This  exiled  queen  of 
Egypt  told  the  storj^  of  her  sorrows,  and  he  promised  her  that  she  should  get 
back  her  throne  in  Egypt  and  take  the  throne  of  wifel}^  dominion  in  his  own 
heart.  Afterwards  they  made  a  triumphal  tour  in  a  barge  that  the  pictures  of 
many  art  galleries  have  called  "  Cleopatra's  Barge,"  and  that  barge  was  covered 
with  a  silken  awning,  and  its  deck  was  soft  with  luxuriant  carpets  and  the  oars 
were  silver- tipped,  and  the  prow  was  gold-mounted,  and  the  air  was  redolent  with 
the  spicery  of  tropical  gardens  and  resonant  with  the  music  that  made  the  night 
glad  as  the  day.  You  may  rejoice,  O  woman  !  that  you  are  not  a  Cleopatra  and 
that  the  one  to  whom  you  may  be  affianced  had  none  of  the  sins  of  Caesar,  the 
conqueror.  But  it  suggests  to  me  how  you,  a  soul  exiled  from  happiness  and 
peace,  may  find  your  way  to  the  feet  of  the  conqueror  of  the  earth  and  sky. 
Though  it  may  be  a  dark  night  of  spiritual  agitation  in  which  you  put  out,  into 
the  harbor  of  peace  you  may  sail,  and  wneu  all  the  wrappings  of  fear  and  doubt 
and  sin  shall  be  removed,  you  will  be  found  at  the  feet  of  Him  who  will  put  you 
on  a  throne,  to  be  acknowledged  as  His  in  the  day  when  all  the  silver  trumpets 
of  the  sky  .shall  proclaim,  "Behold  the  bridegroom  cometh,"  and  in  a  barge  of 
light  you  shall  sail  with  Him  the  river  whose  .source  is  the  foot  of  the  throne, 
and  whose  mouth  is  at  the  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire. 


THE   BROKEN    PROMISES   OF  MARRIAGE. 

ENERAIv  JEPHTHAH,  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  Israel- 
itish  forces  is  buckling  on  the  sword  for  the  extermination  of 
the  pestiferous  Ammonites,  and  looking  up  to  the  sky,  he 
promises  that  if  God  will  give  him  the  victory  he  will  put  to 
death  and  sacrifice  as  a  burned  offering  the  first  thing  that 
comes  out  from  the  door  of  his  homestead  when  he  returns. 
The  hurrahing  of  triumph  soon  runs  along  the  line  of  all  the 
companies,  regiments  and  divisions  of  Jephthah's  army.  A 
worse  beaten  enemy  than  those  Ammonites  never  strewed  any  plain  with  their  car- 
casses. General  Jephthah,  fresh  from  his  victor}^,  is  now  on  his  way  home.  As 
he  came  over  the  hills  and  through  the  valleys  the  whole  march  homeward  for  his 
men  is  a  cheer,  but  for  him  a  great  anxiety,  for  he  remembers  his  vow  to  slay  and 
burn  the  first  thing  that  comes  forth  from  his  house  to  greet  him  after  his  victory. 
Perhaps  it  ma}^  be  the  old  watch-dog  that  shall  first  come  out,  and  who  could 
get  heart  to  beat  out  the  life  of  a  faithful  creature  like  that  as  he  comes  fawning, 
and  barking,  and  frisking,  and  putting  up  his  paw  against  his  master  in  merry 
welcome  after  long  absence?  No;  it  was  not  that  which  came  forth  to  meet  Jeph- 
thah. Perhaps  it  may  be  a  young  dove  let  out  from  its  cage  in  the  General's  home, 
which,  gaining  its  liberty,  may  seem  to  rejoice  in  the  public  gladness,  and  flutter 
on  the  shoulder  of  the  familiar  head  of  the  household.  But  who  could  have  the 
heart  to  slay  such  a  winged  innocent?  No;  it  was  not  that  which  came  forth  to 
meet  Jephthah.  Or  it  may  be  some  good  neighbor  that  will  rush  out  to  greet  him, 
after  having  first  been  in  to  tell  the  family  of  the  near  approach  of  the  General. 
But  who  could  slay  a  neighbor  who  had  come  on  the  scene  to  rejoice  over  the 
reunited  household?     No;  it  was  not  that  which  came  forth  to  meet  Jephthah. 

As  he  advances  upon  his  home  the  door  opens  and  out  of  it  comes  one  whose 
appearance  under  other  circumstances  would  have  been  an  indescribable  joy,  but 
under  the  pledge  of  a  sacrifice  becomes  a  horror  which  blanches  his  cheek  and 
paralyzes  his  form  and  almost  hurls  him  flat  to  the  earth.  His  child,  his  only 
child,  his  daughter  comes  skipping  out  to  greet  him,  her  step  keeping  time  to  a 
timbrel  which  she  shakes  and  smites.  Did  ever  a  conqueror's  cheer  end  in  such  a 
bitter  groan  ?  No  wonder  Dore  in  two  of  his  masterpieces,  presents  the  scene. 
And  Handel  made  it  the  last  and  climacteric  work  of  his  life  to  put  this  pathetic  and 

(125) 


125  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

overpowering  circumstance  in  an  oratorio  seven  months  toiling  amid  its  majestic 
harmonies  until  his  eyesight  gave  out,  and,  as  though  the  sad  scene  of  Jephthah's 
daughter's  sacrifice  were  too  much  for  mortal  vision,  the  grand  old  musician  was 
led  blind  into  the  orchestra  for  the  first  rendering  of  Jephthah.  All  the  glories  of 
victorious  war  are  blotted  out  from  Jephthah's  memory,  and  his  banner  is  folded 
in  grief,  and  his  sword  goes  back  into  the  scabbard  with  dolorous  clang,  and  the 
muffled  drum  takes  the  place  of  the  cymbals,  and  the  "  tremolo  "  the  place  of  the 
trumpet,  and  he  cries  out:  "Alas,  my  daughter,  thou  hast  brought  me  very  low, 
and  thou  art  one  of  them  that  trouble  me;  for  I  have  opened  my  mouth  to  the 
lyord,  and  I  cannot  go  back."  During  two  months  amid  the  mountains,  without 
shelter,  the  maidens  who  would  have  been  at  the  wedding  ranged  with  Jephthah's 
daughter  up  and  down,  bewailing  her  coming  sacrifice. 

BROKEN   PROMISES  AND  THE   EFFECT. 

Commentators  and  theologians  are  in  dispute  as  to  whether  that  girl  was  slain 
or  not,  and  as  to  whether,  if  she  were  slain,  it  was  right  or  wrong  in  Jephthah  to 
be  the  executioner,  a  discussion  into  which  I  shall  not  be  diverted  from  the  over- 
mastering consideration  that  we  had  better  look  out  what  we  promise,  better  be 
cautious  what  engagement  we  make;  better  that  in  regard  to  all  matters  of  l)etrothal 
and  plighted  vow  we  feel  the  responsibility  lest  we  have  either  to  sacrifice  the  truth 
or  sacrifice  an  immortal  being,  and  we  be  led  to  cry  out  with  the  paroxysm  of  a 
Jephthah:     "  I  have  opened  my  mouth  unto  the  Lord,  and  I  cannot  go  back." 

There  is  one  ward  in  almost  all  the  insane  asylums  and  a  large  region  in 
almost  every  cemetery  that  you  need  to  visit.  They  are  occupied  by  the  men  and 
women  who  are  the  victims  of  broken  promises  of  marriage.  The  women  in  these 
wards  and  in  tho.se  mortuary  receptacles  are  in  the  majority,  because  woman  lives 
more  in  her  affections  than  does  man,  and  laceration  of  them  in  her  case  is  more 
apt  to  be  a  dementia  and  a  fatality.  In  .some  regions  of  this  land  the  promi.se  of 
marriage  is  considered  to  have  no  solemnity  or  binding  force.  It  was  only  made 
in  fun.  They  may  change  their  mind.  The  engagement  may  stand  until  some 
one  more  attractive  in  person  or  opulent  in  estate  appears  on  the  scene;  then  the 
rings  are  returned  and  the  amatory  letters  and  all  relationship  ceases.  And  .so 
there  are  10,000  Jephthah's  daughters  sacrificed  as  burnt  offerings.  The  whole 
subject  needs  to  be  taken  out  of  the  realm  of  comedy  into  tragedy,  and  men  and 
women  need  to  understand  that,  while  there  are  exceptions  to  the  rule,  once  having 
solemnly  pledged  to  each  other,  heart  and  hand,  the  forfeiture  and  abandonment  of 
that  pledge  makes  the  transgressor,  in  the  sight  of  God,  a  perjurer,  and  so  the 
day  of  judgment  will  reveal  it.  1  .-"^  one  has  lied  to  the  other;  and  all  liars  shall 
have  their  place  in  the  lake  that  bun.  .th  with  fire  and  brimstone. 


jEphTha's  daughter  bewailing  her  sacrifice.— /^r();«  ///(•  Paintins;  by  W.  Hohnan  Hunt. 

1127) 


128  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

If  a  man  or  woman  make  a  promise  in  the  business  world,  is  there  any  obliga- 
tion to  fulfill  it  ?  If  a  man  sign  a  note  for  $500,  ought  he  to  pa}'  it  ?  If  a  contract 
be  signed  involving  the  building  of  a  house  or  the  furnishing  of  a  bill  of  goods, 
ought  they  stand  by  that  contract?  "Oh,  yes,"  always  answered.  Then  I  ask 
the  further  question  :  "Is  the  heart,  the  happiness,  the  welfare,  the  temporal  and 
eternal  destiny  of  a  man  or  woman  worth  as  much  as  the  house,  worth  $500,  worth 
anything?"  The  realm  of  profligacy  is  filled  with  men  and  women  as  a  result  of 
the  wrong  answer  to  that  question.  The  most  aggravating,  stupendous  and  God- 
defying  lie  is  a  lie  in  the  shape  of  broken  espousal. 

But  suppose  a  man  changes  his  mind,  ought  he  not  back  out  ?  Not  once  in 
10,000  times.  What  if  I  changed  my  mind  about  a  promissory  note  and  decline 
to  pay  it,  and  suddenly  put  my  property  in  such,  shape  that  you  could  not  collect 
your  note?  How  would  3'ou  like  that?  That,  you  say,  W'Ould  be  a  fraud.  So  i.<> 
the  other  a  fraud,  and  punish  it  God  will,  certainly  as  you  live  and  just  as  certainly 
if  you  do  not  live.  I  have  known  men  betrothed  to  loving  and  good  womanhood 
resigning-  their  engagement,  and  the  victim  went  down  in  hast>'  consumption, 
while  suddenly  the  recreant  man  would  go  up  the  aisle  of  a  church  in  a  brilliant 
bridal  party,  and  the  two  promised  "  I  will,"  with  a  solemnity  that  seemed 
insurarice  of  a  lifetime  happiness.  But  the  simple  fact  was,  that  was  the  first  act 
of  a  Shakespearean  play  entitled,  ' '  Taming  the  Shrew. ' '  He  found  out  when  too 
late  that  he  had  not  married  into  the  family  of  the  "  Graces,"  but  into  the  family 
of  the  "Furies."  To  the  day  of  his  death  the  murder  of  his  first  betrothal 
followed  him. 

EXCEPTIONAL   CASES. 

The  Bible  extols  one  who  "  sweareth  to  his  own  hurt  and  changeth  not." 
That  is,  when  30U  make  a  promise  keep  it  at  all  hazards.  There  may  be  cases 
where  deception  has  been  used  at  the  time  of  engagement,  and  extraordinary 
circumstances  where  the  promise  is  not  binding,  but  in  999  cases  out  of  1000 
engagement  is  as  binding  as  marriage.  Robert  Bums  with  all  his  faults  well 
knew  the  force  of  a  marital  engagement.  In  obedience  to  some  rustic  idea,  he, 
standing  on  one  side  the  l)rook  Ayr,  and  Mary  Campbell  on  the  other,  they  bathed 
their  hands  in  the  water  and  then  put  them  on  the  boards  of  a  Bible,  making  their 
pledge  of  fidelity.  On  the  cover  of  the  Old  Testament  of  that  book  to  this  day,  in 
Robert  Burns'  handwriting,  may  be  found  the  words:  "  Leviticus  xix.  12.  Ye 
shall  not  swear  by  my  name  falsely  ;  I  am  the  Lord."  And  on  the  cover  of  the 
New  Testament,  in  his  own  handwriting,  "  Matthew  v.  33:  Thou  shalt  not  forswear 
thyself,  but  shalt  perform  unto  the  Lord  thine  oaths." 

Suppose  a  ship  captain  offers  his  services  to  take  a  ship  out  to  sea.  After  he 
gets  a  little  way  he  comes  alongside  of  a  vessel  with  a   more  beautiful  flag,  and 


I30  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

which  has,  perhaps,  a  richer  cargo  and  is  bound  for  a  more  attractive  port.  Sup- 
pose he  rings  a  bell  for  the  engineer  to  slow  up  and  the  wheel  stops.  Now  I  see 
the  captain  being  lowered  over  the  side  of  the  vessel  into  a  small  boat,  and  he 
crosses  to  the  gayer  and  wealthier  craft,  and  climbs  up  the  sides  and  is  seen 
walking  the  bridge  of  the  other  ship.  I  pick  up  his  resigned  speaking  trumpet 
and  I  shout  through  it:  "  Captain,  what  does  this  mean?  Did  you  not  promise 
to  take  this  ship  to  Southampton,  England  ?"  "  Yes,"  says  the  captain,  "  but  I 
have  changed  my  mind,  and  I  have  found  I  can  do  better,  and  I  am  going  to  take 
charge  here.  I  shall  send  back  to  you  all  the  letters  I  got  while  managing  that 
ship,  and  everything  I  got  from  your  ship,  and  it  will  be  all  right."  You  tell  me 
that  the  worst  fate  for  such  a  captain  as  that  is  too  good  for  him.  But  it  is  just 
what  a  man  or  woman  does  who  promises  to  take  one  through  the  voyage  of  life, 
across  the  ocean  of  earthly  existence,  and  then  breaks  the  promise.  The  sending 
back  of  all  the  letters  and  rings  and  necklaces  and  keepsakes  cannot  make  that 
right  which  is,  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  ought  to  be  in  the  sight  of  man,  an  ever- 
lasting wrong.  What  American  society  needs  to  be  taught  is  that  betrothal  is  an 
act  so  solemn  and  tremendous  that  all  men  and  women  must  stand  back  from  it 
until  they  are  sure  that  it  is  right,  and  sure  that  it  is  best,  and  sure  that  no  retreat 
will  be  desired.  Before  that  promise  of  lifetime  companionship  any  amount  of 
.romance  that  you  wish,  any  ardor  of  friendship,  any  coming  and  going.  But 
espousal  is  a  gate,  a  golden  gate,  which  one  should  not  pass  unless  he  or  she 
expects  never  to  return.  Engagement  is  the  porch  of  which  marriage  is  the  castle, 
and  you  have  no  right  on  the  porch  if  you  do  not  mean  to  pass  into  the  castle. 

The  trouble  has  always  been  that  this  whole  subject  of  affiance  has  been 
relegated  to  the  realm  of  frivolity  and  joke,  and  considered  not  worth  a  sermon  or 
even  a  serious  paragraph.  And  so  the  massacre  of  human  lives  has  gone  on,  and 
the  devil  has  had  it  his  own  cruel  way  ;  and  what  is  mightily  needed  is  that  pulpit 
and  platform  and  printing  press,  all  speak  a  word  of  unmistakable  and  thunderous 
protest  on  this  subject  of  infinite  importance.  We  put  clear  out  into  thin  poesy 
and  light  reading  the  marital  engagements  of  Petrarch  and  his  Laura,  Dante  and 
his  Beatrice,  Chaucer  and  his  Philippa,  Lorenzo  de  Medici  and  his  Lucretia, 
Spenser  and  his  Rosalind,  Waller  and  his  Saccharissa,  not  realizing  that  it  was  the 
style  of  their  engagement  that  decided  their  happiness  or  wretchedness,  their 
virtue  or  their  profligacy.  All  the  literary  and  military  and  religious  glory  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  cannot  blot  out  from  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  pages 
of  history  her  infamous  behavior  towards  Seymour  and  Philip  and  Melville  and 
Leicester  and  others.  All  the  ecclesiastical  robes  that  Dean  Swift  ever  rustled 
through  consecrated  places  cannot  hide  from  intelligent  people  of  all  ages  the  fact 
that  by  promises  of  marriage  which  he  never  fulfilled  he  broke  the  heart  of  Jane 
Waring  after   an  engagement   of  seven    years,  and  the  heart  of  Stella  after  an 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE.  131 

engagement  of  fourteen  years,  and  the  poetic  stanzas  he  dedicated  to  their  excel- 
lences only  make  the  more  immortal  his  own  perfidy, 

NO  EXCUSE  FOR  MAKING  MISTAKES. 

"  But  suppose  I  should  make  a  mistake,"  says  some  man  or  woman,  "  and  I 
find  it  out  after  the  engagement  and  before  marriage?"  My  answer  is,  You  have 
no  excuse  for  making  a  mistake  on  this  subject.  There  are  so  many  ways  of  find- 
ing out  all  about  the  character,  and  preferences,  and  dislikes,  and  habits  of  a  man 
or  woman  that  if  you  have  not  brain  enough  to  form  a  right  judgment  in  regard 
to  him  or  her,  you  are  not  so  fit  a  candidate  for  the  matrimonial  altar  as  you  are 
for  an  idiot  asylum.  Notice  what  society  your  especial  friend  prefers,  whether  he  ■» 
is  industrious  or  lazy,  whether  she  is  neat  or  slatternly,  what  books  are  read,  what 
was  the  style  of  ancestry,  noble  or  depraved,  and  if  there  beany  unsolved  mystery 
about  the  person  under  consideration  postpone  all  promise  until  the  mystery  is 
solved. 

Jackson's  Hollow,  Brooklyn,  was  part  of  the  city  not  built  on  for  many  years, 
and  every  time  I  crossed  I  said  to  myself  or  to  others.  Why  is  not  this  land  built 
on  ?  I  found  out  afterward  that  the  title  to  the  land  was  in  controversy,  and  no 
one  wanted  to  build  there  until  that  question  was  decided.  Afterward  I  under- 
stood the  title  was  settled,  and  now  buildings  are  going  up  all  over  it.  Do  not 
build  your  happiness  for  this  world  on  a  character,  masculine  or  feminine,  that  has 
not  a  settled  and  undisputed  title  to  honor,  and  truth,  and  sobriety,  and  kindness, 
and  righteousness. 

O  woman  !  you  have  more  need  to  pause  before  making  such  an  important 
promise  than  man;  because  if  you  make  a  mistake  it  is  worse  for  you.  If  a  man 
blunder  about  promise  of  marriage  he  can  spend  his  evenings  away  and  can  go  to 
the  club  or  the  Republican  or  Democratic  headquarters,  and  absorb  his  mind  in 
city  or  State  and  national  elections,  or  smoke  himself  stupid  or  drink  himself 
drunk.  But  there  is  no  place  of  regular  retreat  for  you,  O  woman  !  and  you  could 
not  take  narcotics  or  intoxicants  and  keep  your  respectability.  Before  you  promise, 
pray  and  think,  and  study  and  advise.  There  will  never  again  in  your  earthly 
history  be  a  time  when  you  so  much  need  God. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  world  ought  to  cast  out  from  business  credits  and  from 
good  neighborhood  those  who  boast  of  the  number  of  hearts  they  have  won,  as 
the  Indian  boasts  of  the  number  of  scalps  he  has  taken.  If  a  man  will  lie  to  a 
woman  and  a  woman  will  lie  to  a  man  about  so  important  a  matter  as  that  of  a 
lifetime's  welfare,  they  will  lie  about  a  bill  of  goods,  and  lie  about  finances  and  lie 
about  anything.  Society  to-day  is  brimful  of  gallants  and  man  milliners  and 
carpet  knights  and  coquettes  and  those  most  God-forsaken  of  all  wretches — flirts. 
And  they  go  about  drawing-rooms  and  the  parlors  of  watering  places,  simpering, 


132 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


and  l)o\ving,  and  scraping,  and  whispering,  and  then  return  to  the  chib-rooms,  if 
they  be  men,  or  to  their  social  gatherings,  if  they  be  women,  to  chatter  and 
giggle  over  what  was  said  to  them  in  confidence.  Condign  punishment  is  apt  to 
come  upon  them  and  they  get  paid  in  their  owii  coin.     I  could  point  you  to  a 


SICK   AND   NEGLECTED. 

score  whom  society  has  let  drop  ver>'  hard  in  return  for  their  base  traffic  in  human 
hearts.  As  to  such  men,  they  walk  around  in  their  celibacy  after  their  hair  is 
streaked  with  gray,  and  pretending  they  are  naturally  short-sighted  when  their 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  i33 

eyes  are  so  old  in  sin  that  they  need  the  spectacles  of  a  septuagenarian,  an  eye- 
glass about  No.  8,  and  think  they  are  bewitching  in  their  stride  and  overpower- 
ing in  their  glances,  although  they  are  simply  laughing-stocks  for  all  mankind. 
And  if  these  base  dealers  in  human  hearts  be  females  they  are  left  after  a  while 
severely  alone,  striving  in  a  very  desperation  of  agony  of  cosmetics  to  get  back  to 
the  attractiveness  they  had  when  they  used  to  brag  how  many  masculine  affec- 
tions they  had  slaughtered.  Forsaken  of  God  and  honest  men  and  good  women 
are  sure  to  be  all  such  masculine  and  female  triflers  with  human  and  yet  immortal 
affections.     O  man,  O  woman,  having  plighted  your  troth,  stick  to  it ! 

DIVORCE  A  LAST  RESORT. 

I  have  to  say  not  only  to  those  who  have  made  a  mistake  in  solemn  promise 
of  marriage,  but  to  those  who  have  already  at  the  altar  been  pronounced  one, 
when  they  are  two,  or  in  diversity  of  tastes  and  likes  and  dislikes  are  neither  one 
nor  two,  but  a  dozen:  make  the  best  you  can  of  an  awful  mistake. 

And  here  let  me  answer  letters  that  come  from  every  State  of  the  American 
Union,  and  from  across  the  sea,  and  are  coming  year  after  year  from  men  and 
women  who  are  terrifically  allianced  and  tied  together  in  a  hard  knot,  a  very  hard 
knot.  The  letters  run  something  like  this:  "What  ought  I  to  do,  my  husband 
is  a  drunkard?"  "  My  wife  is  a  gad-about,  and  will  not  stay  at- home. "  "My 
companion  is  ignorant  and  hates  books  and  I  revel  in  them."  "  I  like  music,  and 
a  piano  sets  my  husband  craz}^"  "  I  am  fond  of  social  life,  and  my  companion  is 
a  recluse."  "I  am  trying  to  be  good,  and  mj^  life- long  associate  is  very  bad. 
What  shall  I  do?"  My  answer  is,  there  are  certain  good  reasons  for  divorcement. 
The  Bible  recognizes  them.  Good  society  recognizes  them.  But  it  must  be  the 
very  last  resort,  and  only  after  all  reasonable  attempts  at  reclamation  and  adjust- 
ment have  proved  a  dead  failure.  When  such  attempts  fail  it  is  generally  because 
of  meddlesome  outsiders,  and  women  tell  the  wronged  wife  how  she  ought  to 
stand  on  her  rights,  and  men  tell  the  wronged  husband  how  he  ought  to  stand  on 
his  rights.  And  let  husband  and  wife  in  an  unhappy  marriage  relation  stand 
punctiliously  on  their  rights  and  there  will  be  no  readjustment,  and  only  one  thing 
will  be  sure  to  them,  and  that  is  a  hell  on  earth. 

If  you  are  unhappily  married,  in  most  cases  I  advise  you,  make  the  best  you 
can  of  an  awfully  bad  bargain.  Do  not  project  your  peculiarities  more  than  is 
necessary.  Perhaps  you  may  have  some  faults  of  j^our  own  which  the  other  party 
in  the  marital  alliance  may  have  to  suffer.  You  are  in  the  same  yoke.  If  you 
pull  aside,  the  yoke  will  only  twist  your  neck.  Better  pull  ahead.  The  world  is 
full  of  people  who  made  mistakes  about  many  things,  and  among  other  things 
about  betrothal  and  marriage,  and  yet  have  been  tolerably  happy  and  very  useful 
in  the  strength  of  God  and  by  the  grace  promised  in  every  time  of  need  to  those 


134  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

who  seek  to  conquer  the  disadvantageous  circumstances.  I  am  acquainted  with 
lovely  women  married  to  contemptible  men,  and  genial  men  yoked  with  termagants 
inspired  with  the  devil.  And  yet  under  these  disadvantages  my  friends  are  useful 
and  happy,  God  helps  people  in  other  kinds  of  martyrdom  and  to  sing  in  the 
flame,  and  He  will  help  you  in  your  life-long  misfortune. 

Remember  the  patience  of  Job.  What  a  wife  he  had  !  At  a  time  when  he 
was  one  great  blotch  of  eruptions,  and  his  property  was  destroyed  by  a  tornado, 
and,  more  than  all,  bereavement  had  come  ami  the  poor  man  needed  all  wise 
counsel,  she  advises  him  to  go  to  cursing  and  swearing.  She  wanted  him  to 
poultice  his  boils  with  blasphemy.  But  he  lived  right  on  through  his  marital 
disadvantages,  recovered  his  health  and  his  fortune,  and  raised  a  splendid  famih', 
and  the  closing  paragraph  of  the  Book  of  Job  has  such  a  jubilance  that  I  wonder 
people  do  not  oftener  read  it:  "So  the  Eord  blessed  the  latter  end  of  Job  more 
than  his  beginning:  for  he  had  14,000  sheep,  and  6000  camels,  and  1000  3'oke  of 
oxen,  and  1000  she-asses.  He  had  also  seven  sons  and  three  daughters.  And  he 
called  the  name  of  the  first,  Jemima;  and  the  name  of  the  second,  Kezia;  and  the 
name  of  the  third,  Kerenhappuch.  And  in  all  the  land  were  no  women  found  so 
fair  as  the  daughters  of  Job;  and  their  father  gave  them  inheritance  among  their 
brethren.  After  this  lived  Job  140  years,  and  saw  his  sons,  and  his  sons'  sons, 
even  four  generations.     So  Job  died,  being  old  and  full  of  days." 

WHAT  A  WIFE  CAN   DO. 

Now,  my  badly  married  friend  of  either  sex,  if  Job  could  stand  it  by  the  help 
of  God,  then  you  can  stand  it  by  the  same  divine  re-enforcement.  You  have 
other  relations,  O  woman,  beside  the  wifely  relation.  If  you  are  a  mother,  train 
up  your  children  for  God  and  heaven.  If  you  are  a  member  of  a  church,  help 
move  on  its  enterprises.  You  can  get  so  much  of  the  grace  of  God  in  your  heart 
that  all  your  home  trials  will  seem  insignificant.  How  little  difference  does  it 
make  what  your  unrighteous  husband  calls  you,  if  God  calls  you  His  child  and 
you  are  an  heire.ss  of  whole  kingdoms  beyond  the  sky  ? 

Immerse  yourself  in  some  kind  of  outside  usefulness,  something  tliat  will 
enlist  your  prayers,  )^our  sympathies,  your  hand,  your  needle,  your  voice.  Get 
your  heart  on  fire  with  love  to  God  and  the  disenthrallment  of  the  human  race, 
and  the  troubles  of  your  home  will  be  blotted  out  in  the  glory  of  your  consecrated 
life.  I  cry  out  to  you,  O  woman,  as  Paul  exclaims  in  his  letter  to  the  Corinthians: 
What  knowest  thou,  O  wife,  whether  thou  shalt  save  thy  husband  ?  And  if  you 
cannot  save  him  you  can  help  in  the  grander,  mightier  enterprise  of  helping  save 
the  world.  Out  of  the  awful  mistake  of  your  marriage  rise  into  the  sublimest  life 
of  self-sacrifice  for  God  and  suffering  humanity.  Instead  of  settling  down  to 
mope  over  your  domestic  woes,  enlist  your  energies  for  the  world's  redemption. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  IvIFE.  i35 

Some  parts  of  Holland  keep  out  the  ocean  only  by  dikes  or  walls  of  stout 
masonry.  The  engineer  having  these  dikes  in  charge  was  soon  to  be  married  to 
a  maiden  living  in  one  of  the  villages,  the  existence  of  which  depended  on 
the  strength  of  these  dikes.  And  there  was  to  be  a  great  feast  in  one  of  the 
villages  that  approaching  evening  in  honor  of  the  coming  bridegroom.  That 
day  a  great  storm  threatened  the  destruction  of  the  dikes,  and  hence  the 
destruction  of  thousands  of  lives  in  the  villages  sheltered  by  that  stone  wall. 
The  ocean  was  in  full  wrath,  beating  against  the  dikes,  and  the  tides  and  the 
terror  were  still  rising.  "Shall  I  go  to  the  feast,"  says  the  engineer,  "or  shall  I 
go  and  help  my  workmen  take  care  of  the  dikes?"  "  Take  care  of  the  dikes," 
he  said  to  himself,  "I  must  and  will."  As  he  appeared  on  the  wall  the  men 
working  there  were  exhausted  and  shouted:  "  Here  comes  the  engineer.  Thank 
God  !  Thank  God  !"  The  wall  was  giving  way  stone  by  stone,  and  the  engineer 
had  a  rope  fastened  around  his  body,  and  some  of  the  workmen  had  ropes  fastened 
around  their  bodies,  and  were  let  down  amid  the  wild  surges  that  beat  the  wall. 
Everj'thing  was  giving  way.  "  More  stones  !"  cried  the  men.  "  More  mortar  !" 
But  the  answer  came:  "There  is  no  more  !"  "Then,"  cried  the  engineer,  "  take 
off  your  clothes,  and  with  them  stop  the  holes  in  the  well."  And  so,  in  the  chill 
and  darkness  and  surf  it  was  done,  and  with  the  workmen' s  apparel  the  openings 
in  the  wall  were  partially  filled.  But  still  the  tide  rose  and  still  the  ocean  reared 
itself  for  more  awful  stroke  and  for  the  overwhelming  of  thousands  of  lives  in  the 
villages.  "  Now  we  have  done  all  we  can,"  said  the  engineer,  "  down  on  your 
knees,  my  men,  and  pray  to  God  for  help."  And  on  the  trembling  and  parting 
dikes  they  prayed  till  the  wind  changed  and  the  sea  subsided,  and  the  villages 
below,  which,  knowing  nothing  of  the  peril,  were  full  of  romp  and  dance  and 
hilarity,  were  gloriously  saved. 

Now,  what  we  want  in  the  work  of  walling  back  the  oceans  of  poverty  and 
drunkenness,  and  impurity,  and  sin  is  the  help  of  more  womanly  and  manly  hands. 
Oh,  how  the  tides  come  in  !  Atlantic  surge  of  sorrow  after  Atlantic  surge  of  sor- 
row, and  the  tempests  of  human  hate  and  Satanic  fury  are  in  full  cry.  O  woman 
of  many  troubles,  what  are  all  the  feasts  of  worldly  delight,  if  they  were  offered 
you,  compared  with  the  opportunity  of  helping  to  build  and  support  barriers  which 
sometimes  seem  giving  way  through  man's  treacherj'  and  the  world's  assault? 
O  woman,  to  the  dikes  !  Bring  prayer,  bring  tears,  bring  cheering  words  ! 
Help  !  Help  !  And  having  done  all,  kneel  with  us  on  the  quaking  wall  until 
the  God  of  the  wind  and  the  sea  shall  hush  the  one  and  silence  the  other.  To  the 
dikes !  Sisters,  mothers,  wives,  daughters  of  America,  to  the  dikes  !  The 
mightiest  catholicon  for  all  the  wounds  and  wrongs  of  woman  or  man  is  complete 
absorption  in  the  work  to  rescue  others.  Save  some  man,  some  woman,  some 
child  ! 


136 


THK  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


In  that  effort  you  will  forget  or  be  helped  to  bear  your  ovv^n  trials,  and  in  a 
little  while  God  will  take  you  up  out  of  your  disturbed  and  harrowing  conjugal 
relation  of  earth  into  heaven,  all  the  happier  because  of  preceding  distress.  When 
Queen  Elizabeth  of  England  was  expiring,  it  was  arranged  that  the  exact  moment 
of  her  death  should  be  signaled  to  the  people  by  the  dropping  of  a  sapphire  ring 
from  the  window  into  the  hands  of  an  officer,  who  carried  it  at  the  top  of  his  speed 
to  King  James  of  Scotland.  But  your  departure  from  the  scene  of  your  earthly 
woes,  if  you  are  ready  to  go,  will  not  be  the  dropping  of  a  sapphire  to  the  ground, 
but  the  setting  of  a  jewel  in  a  king's  coronet.  Blessed  be  His  glorious  name 
forever  ! 


THE  RESULTS  OF  TRYING  TO  LEAD  A  FASHIONABLE  LIFE. 

^  ^F^O  true  accomplishments  of  life  .are  productive  of  effeminacy 
(^.^^^L  ^  or  enervation.  Good  manners  and  a  respect  for  the  tastes 
A^^^fo,^  of  others  are  indispensable.  The  good  Book  speaks  favor- 
^^^wC>  ^^^y  ^^  those  who  are  a  "  peculiar"  people;  but  that  does 
p^^^^^'^  not  sanction  the  behavior  of  queer  people.  There  is  no 
^^^^  excuse,  under  an^^  circumstances,  for  not  being  and  acting 

^  the   lady  or  gentleman.     Rudeness   is   sin.     We   have   no 

words  too  ardent  to  express  our  admiration  for  the  refine- 
ments of  society.  There  is  no  law,  moral  or  divine,  to  forbid  elegance  of 
demeanor,  or  ornaments  of  gold,  or  gems  for  the  person,  artistic  displa}'  in  the 
dwelling,  gracefulness  of  gait  and  bearing,  polite  salutation  or  honest  compli- 
ments; and  he  who  is  shocked  or  offended  by  these  had  better,  like  the  old  Scy- 
thians, wear  tiger-skins  and  take  one  wild  leap  back  into  midnight  barbarism.  As 
Christianity  advances  there  will  be  better  apparel,  higher  styles  of  achitecture, 
more  exquisite  adornments,  sweeter  music,  grander  pictures,  more  correct  behavior 
and  more  thorough  ladies  and  gentlemen. 

But  there  is  another  story  to  be  told.  Wrong  fashion  is  to  be  charged  with 
many  of  the  worst  evils  of  society,  and  its  path  has  often  been  strewn  with  the 
bodies  of  the  slain.  It  has  often  set  up  a  false  standard  by  which  people  are  to  be 
judged.  Our  common  sense,  as  well  as  all  the  divine  intimations  on  the  subject, 
teach  us  that  "people  ought  to  be  esteemed  according  to  their  individual  and  moral 
attainments.  The  man  who  has  the  most  nobility  of  soul  should  be  first,  and  he 
who  has  the  least  of  such  qualities  should  stand  last.  No  crest,  or  shield,  or 
escutcheon  can  indicate  one's  moral  peerage.  Titles  of  Duke,  Lord,  Esquire,  Earl, 
Viscount  or  Patrician  ought  not  to  raise  one  into  the  first  rank.  Some  of  the 
meanest  men  I  have  ever  known  had  at  the  end  of  their  name  D.  D.,  Lrly.  D.  and 
F.  R.  S. 

Wrong  fashion  is  incompatible  with  happiness.  Those  who  depend  for  their 
comfort  upon  the  admiration  of  others  are  subject  to  frequent  disappointment. 
Somebody  will  criticise  their  appearance,  or  surpass  them  in  brilliancy,  or  will 
receive  more  attention.     Oh,  the  jealousy,  and  distraction,  and  heart-burnings  of 

(137) 


1 38  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

those  who  move  in  this  bewildered  maze  !  Poor  butterflies  !  Bright  wings  do 
not  always  bring  happiness.  "She  that  liveth  in  pleasure  is  dead  while  she 
liveth."  The  revelations  of  high  life  that  come  to  the  challenge  and  the  fight  are 
only  the  occasional  croppings  out  of  disquietude  that  are,  underneath,  like  the 
stars  of  heaven  for  multitude  but  like  the  demons  of  the  pit  for  hate.  The  misery 
that  will  to-night  in  the  cellar  cuddle  up  in  the  straw  is  not  so  utter  as  the  princely 
disquietude  which  stalks  through  the  splendid  drawing-rooms,  brooding  over  the 
slights  and  offences  of  luxurious  life.  The  bitterness  of  life  seems  not  so  unfitting 
when  drunk  out  of  a  pewter  mug  as  when  it  pours  from  the  chased  lips  of  a  golden 
chalice.  In  the  sharp  crack  of  the  voluptuary's  pistol,  putting  an  end  to  his 
earthly  misery,  I  hear  the  confirmation  that  in  a  hollow,  fastidious  life  there  is  no 

peace. 

Devotion  to  wrong  fashion  is  productive  of  physical  disease,  mental  imbecility 
and  spiritual  withering.  Apparel  insufficient  to  keep  out  the  cold  and  the  rain, 
or  so  fitted  upon  the  person  that  the  functions  of  life  are  restrained;  late  hours 
filled  with  excitement  and  feasting;  free  draughts  of  wine  that  make  one  not 
beastly  intoxicated,  but  only  fashionably  drunk,  and  luxurious  idleness  are  the 
instruments  by  which  this  unreal  life  pushes  its  disciples  into  valetudinarianism 
and  the  grave.  Along  the  walks  of  prosperous  life  Death  goes  a-mowing — and 
such  harvests  are  reaped  !  Materia  Medica  has  been  exhausted  to  find  curatives 
for  those  physiological  devastations.  Dropsies,  cancers,  consumptions,  gout  and 
almost  every  infirmity  in  all  the  realm  of  pathology  have  been  the  penalties  paid. 
To  counteract  the  damage  Pharmacy  has  gone  forth  with  medicament,  panacea, 
elixir,  embrocation,  salve  and  cataplasm. 

A  wardrobe  is  the  rock  upon  which  many  a  soul  has  been  riven.  The  excite- 
ment of  a  luxurious  life  has  been  the  vortex  that  has  swallowed  up  moie  souls 
than  the  Maelstrom  of  Norway  ever  destroyed  ships.  What  room  for  elevating 
themes  in  a  heart  filled  with  the  trivial  and  unreal  ? 

TUMBLING  INTO  RUIN. 

Who  can  wonder  that  in  this  haste  for  sun-gilded  baubles  and  winged  thistle- 
down, men  and  women  should  tumble  into  ruin?  The  travelers  to  destruction 
are  not  all  clothed  in  rags.  On  that  road  chariot  jostles  against  chariot,  and 
behind  steeds  in  harness,  golden-plated  and  glittering,  they  go  down,  coach  and 
four,  herald  and  postilion,  racketing  on  the  hot  pavements  of  hell.  Clear  the 
track  !  Bazaars  hang  out  their  colors  over  the  road,  and  trees  of  tropical  fruitful- 
ness  overbranch  the  way.  No  sound  of  woe  disturbs  the  air,  but  all  is  light,  and 
song,  and  wine,  and  gorgeousness.  The  world  comes  out  to  greet  the  dazzling 
procession  with:  "Hurrah!  Hurrah!"  But  suddenly  there  is  a  halt  and  an 
outcry  of  dismay,  and  an  overflow  worse  than  the  Red  Sea  tumbling  upon  the 


FASHIONS  OF  HEAD   DRESS  AMONG  DIFFERENT    NATIONS   IN  THE  FIFTEENTH   CENTURY. 

(139) 


I40  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Egyptians.  Shadow  of  gravestones  upon  finest  silk  !  Wormwood  squeezed  into 
inipearled  goblets  !  Death  with  one  cold  breath  withering  the  leaves  and  freezing 
the  fountains. 

In  the  wild  tumult  of  the  last  day — the  mountains  falling,  the  heavens  flying, 
the  thrones  uprising,  the  universe  assembling;  amid  the  boom  of  the  last  great 
thunder-peal,  and  luider  the  cracking  of  a  burning  world — what  will  become  of 
the  disciple  of  unholy  fashion  ? 

But  watch  the  career  of  one  thoroughly  artificial.  Through  inheritance,  or 
perhaps  his  own  skill,  having  obtained  enough  for  purposes  of  display,  he  feels 
himself  thoroughly  established.  He  sits  aloof  from  the  common  herd,  and  looks 
out  of  his  window  upon  the  poor  man  and  says:  ' '  Put  that  dirty  wretch  off  my  steps 
inunediately  !"  On  Sabbath  days  he  finds  the  church,  but  mourns  the  fact  that  he 
must  worship  with  so  many  of  the  inelegant,  and  says:  "They  are  perfectly 
awful  !"  "  That  man  that  you  put  in  my  pew  had  a  coat  on  his  back  that  did  not 
cost  $5.00." 

He  struts  through  life  unsympathetic  with  trouble,  and  says:  "I  cannot  be 
bothered."  Is  delighted  with  some  doubtful  story  of  Parisian  life,  but  thinks 
that  there  are  some  very  indecent  things  in  the  Bible.  Walks  arm  in  arm  with 
the  successful  man  of  the  world,  but  does  not  know  his  own  brother.  Loves  to  be 
praised  for  his  splendid  house,  and  when  told  that  he  looks  younger  than  ten 
years  ago,  .says:   "  Well,  really,  do  you  think  so?" 

liut  the  brief  strut  of  his  life  is  about  over.  Up-stairs,  he  dies.  No  angel 
wings  hovering  about  him.  No  gospel  promises  kindling  up  the  darkness;  but 
exquisite  embroidery,  elegant  pictures  and  a  bust  of  Shakespeare  on  the  mantel. 
The  pulses  stop.  The  minister  comes  in  to  read  of  the  Resurrection,  that  day 
when  the  dead  shall  come  up — both  he  that  died  on  the  floor  and  he  that  expired 
under  princely  upholstery.  He  is  carried  out  to  burial.  Only  a  few  mourners, 
but  a  great  array  of  carriages.  Not  one  common  man  at  the  funeral.  No 
befriended  orphan  to  weep  a  tear  on  his  grave.  No  child  of  want  pressing 
through  the  ranks  of  the  weeping,  saying:  "  He  is  the  last  friend  I  have  and  I 
must  see  him." 

What  now  ?  He  was  a  great  man.  Shall  not  chariots  of  salvation  come  down 
to  the  other  side  of  the  Jordan  and  escort  him  up  to  the  palace?  Shall  not  the 
angels  exclaim :  ' '  Turn  out  !  A  prince  is  coming  ?"  Will  the  bells  chime  ?  Will 
there  be  haqiers  with  their  harps  and  tnunjieters  with  their  trumpets  ? 

No  !  no  !  no  !  There  will  be  a  shudder,  as  though  a  calamity  had  happened. 
Standing  on  heaven's  battlements,  a  watchman  will  see  something  shoot  past,  with 
fiery  downfall  and  shriek:  "  Wandering  star — for  whom  is  reserved  the  blackness 
of  darkness  forever  !" 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


141 


CLOSE  OF  A  LIFE  OF  FASHION. 

But  sadder  yet  is  the  closing  of  a  woman's  life  that  has  been  worshipful  of 
worldliness,  all  the  wealth  of  a  lifetime's  opportunity  wasted.  What  a  tragedy. 
A  woman  on  her  dying  pillow,  thinking  of  what  she  might  have  done  for  God  and 
humanity,  and  5'et  having  done  nothing.  Compare  her  demise  with  that  of  a 
Harriet  Newell,  going  down  to  die  peacefully  in  the  Isle  of  France,  reviewing  her 
lifetime  sacrifices  for  the  redemption  of  India;  or  the  last  hours  of  Elizabeth 
Hervey,  having  exchanged  her  bright  New  England  home  for  a  life  at  Bombay 
amid  stolid  heathenism,  that  she  might  illumine  it,  saying,  in  her.  last  moments: 
"  If  this  is  the  dark  valley,  it  has  not  a  dark  spot  in  it;  all  is  light,  light !"  or  the 
exit  of  Mrs.  Lennox,  falling  under  sudden  disease  at  Smyrna,  breathing  out  her 
soul  with  the  last  words:  "  Oh,  how  happy  !"  or  the  departure  of  Mrs.  Sarah  D. 
Comstock,  spending  her  life  for  the  salvation  of  Burmah,  giving  up  her  children 
that  they  might  come  home  to  America  to  be  educated,  and  saying  as  she  kissed 
them  good-bye,  never  to  see  them  again:  "  O  Jesus,  I  do  this  for  Thee  !"  or  the 
going  of  10,000  good  women,  who  in  less  resounding  spheres  have  lived  not  for 
themselves,  but  for  God  and  the  alleviation  of  human  suffering.  That  was  a 
brilliant  scene  when,  in  1485,  in  the  campaign  for  the  capture  of  Ronda,  Queen 
Elizabeth,  of  Castile,  on  horseback,  side  by  side  with  King  Ferdinand,  rode  out  to 
review  the  troops.  As  she  in  bright  armor  rode  along  the  lines  of  the  Spanish 
host,  and  w^aved  her  jeweled  hand  to  the  warriors,  and  ever  and  anon  uttered 
words  of  cheer  to  the  worn  veterans  who,  far  away  from  their  homes,  were  risking 
their  lives  for  the  kingdom,  it  was  a  spectacle  that  illumines  history.  But  more 
glorious  will  be  the  scene  when  that  consecrated  Christian  woman,  crowned  in 
heaven,  shall  review  the  souls  that  on  earth  she  clothed,  and  fed,  and  medicined, 
and  evangelized,  and  then  introduced  into  the  ranks  celestial.  As  on  the  white 
horse  of  victory,  side  by  side  with  the  king,  this  queen  unto  God  forever  shall 
ride  past  the  lines  of  those  in  whose  salvation  she  bore  a  part,  the  scene  will  sur- 
pass anything  ever  witnessed  on  earth  in  the  life  of  Joan  of  Arc,  or  Penelope,  or 
Semiramis,  or  Aspasia,  or  Marianne,  or  Margaret  of  Anjou.     Ride  on,  victor  ! 


cr  il>o  31?<^n^ull^  ®jcit]Ci|iir^ 


A  LESSON   FROM   AHASUERUS'    BEAUTIFUL  BUT  MODEST  QUEEN. 


CCEPT  my  arm,  and  I  will  escort  you  into  a  throne  room.  We 
stand  amid  the  palaces  of  Shushan.  The  pinnacles  are 
aflame  with  the  morning  light.  The  columns  rise  festooned 
and  wreathed,  the  wealth  of  empires  flashing  from  the 
grooves:  the  ceilings  adorned  with  images  of  birds  and 
beast,  the  scenes  of  prowess  and  conquest.  The  walls  are 
hung  with  shields  and  emblazoned  until  it  seems  that  the 
whole  round  of  splendor  is  exhausted.  Each  arch  is  a 
mighty  leap  of  architectural  achievement.  Golden  stars,  shining  dow'u  on  glow- 
ing arabesque.  Hangings  of  embroidered  work,  in  which  mingle  the  blueness  of 
the  sky,  the  greenness  of  the  grass,  and  the  whiteness  of  the  sea-foam.  Tapestries 
hung  on  silver  rings,  wedding  together  the  pillars  of  marble.  Pavilions  reaching 
out  in  every  direction.  These  for  repose,  filled  with  luxuriant  couches,  in  which 
weary  limbs  sink  until  all  fatigue  is  submerged.  These  for  carousal,  where  kings 
drink  down  a  kingdom  at  one  swallow.  Amazing  spectacle  !  Light  of  silver 
dripi)ing  down  over  stairs  of  ivory  on  shields  of  gold.  Floors  of  stained  marble, 
sunset  red  and  night  black,  and  inlaid  with  gleaming  pearls.  Why,  it  seems  as 
if  a  heavenly  vision  of  amethyst,  and  jacinth,  and  topaz,  and  chrj-soprasus  had 
descended  and  alighted  upon  Shushan.  It  seems  as  if  a  billow  of  celestial  glory 
had  dashed  clear  over  heaven's  battlements  upon  this  metropolis  of  Persia.  In 
connection  with  this  palace  there  is  a  garden,  where  the  mighty  men  of  foreign 
lands  are  seated  at  a  banquet.  Under  the  spread  of  oak,  and  linden,  and  acacia, 
the  tables  are  arranged.  The  breath  of  honeysuckle  and  frankincense  fills  the  air. 
Fountains  leap  up  in  the  light,  the  spray  struck  through  with  rainbows  falling  in 
crystalline  baptism  upon  flowering  shrubs,  then  rolling  down  through  channels  of 
marble,  and  widening  out  here  and  there  into  pools  swirling  with  the  finny  tribes 
of  foreign  aquariums,  bordered  with  scarlet  anemones,  hypericums  and  many- 
colored  ranunculus.  Meats  of  rarest  bird  and  beast  smoking  up  amid  wreaths  of 
aromatics.  The  vases  filled  with  apricots  and  almonds.  The  baskets  piled  up 
with  ajiples  and  dates,  and  figs,  and  oranges,  and  pomegranates.  Melons  taste- 
fully twined  with  leaves  of  acacia.     The  bright  waters  of  Eulaeus  filling  the  urns, 

(142) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


H3 


and  sweating  outside  the  rim  in  flashing  beads  amid  the  traceries.  Wine  from  the 
royal  vats  of  Ispahan  and  Shiraz,  in  bottles  of  iridescent  shell,  and  lily-shaped 
cups  of  silver,  and  flagons  and  tankards  of  solid  gold.     The  music  rises  higher, 


MEETING  OF  THE  TRUSTEES  OF  A   BACK  SETTLEMENT  SCHOOL— EXAMINING  THE  TEACHER. 

By  Robert  Harris. 

and  the  revelry  breaks  out  into  wilder  transport,  and  the  wine  has  flushed  the 
cheek  and  touched  the  brain,  and  louder  than  all  other  voices  are  the  hiccough  of 
the  inebriates,  the  gabble  of  fools,  and  the  song  of  the  drunkard. 


144  THE  PATHWAY  OF  IJFE. 

In  another  part  of  the  palace  Queen  Vashti  is  entertaining  the  princesses  of 
Persia  at  a  banquet.  Drunken  Ahasuerus  says  to  his  ser\'ants:  "You  go  out  and 
fetch  Vashti  from  the  banquet  with  the  women  and  bring  her  to  this  banquet  with 
the  men,  and  let  her  display  her  beauty."  The  ser\'ants  immediately  start  to 
obey  the  king's  command,  but  there  was  a  rule  in  Oriental  society  that  no  woman 
might  appear  in  public  without  having  her  face  veiled.  Yet,  here  was  a  mandate 
that  no  one  dare  dispute,  demanding  that  Vashti  come  in  unveiled,  before  the 
multitude.  However,  there  was  in  Vashti's  soul  a  principle  more  regal  than 
Aliasuerus,  more  brilliant  than  the  gold  of  Shushan,  of  more  wealth  than  the 
realm  of  Persia,  which  commanded  her  to  disobey  this  order  of  the  king;  and  so 
all  the  righteousness,  and  holiness  and  modesty  of  her  nature  rises  up  into  sublime 
refusal.  She  says:  "I  will  not  go  into  the  banquet  unveiled."  Of  course 
Ahasuerus  was  infuriate;  and  Vashti,  robbed  of  her  position  and  her  estate,  is  driven 
forth  in  poverty  and  ruin  to  suffer  the  scorn  of  a  nation,  and  yet  to  receive  the 
applause  of  after  generations  who  shall  rise  up  to  admire  this  martyr  to  kingly 
insolence.  Well,  the  last  vestige  of  that  feast  is  gone;  the  last  garland  has  faded; 
the  last  arch  has  fallen;  the  last  tankard  has  been  destroyed,  and  Shushan  is  a 
ruin;  but  as  long  as  the  world  stands  there  will  be  multitudes  of  men  and  women, 
familiar  with  the  Bible,  who  will  come  into  this  picture  gallery  of  God  and  admire 
the  divine  portrait  of  Vashti  the  queen,  Vashti  the  veiled,  Vashti  the  sacrifice, 
Vasliti  the  silent.  Though  her  place  was  surrendered  to  Esther,  3'et  .^he  lives 
clothed  in  more  royal  raiment  than  any  earthly  king  could  pro\ide,  with  1  coronet 
more  dazzling  than  all  Persia  could  purchase,  decked  now  in  robes  and  diadems 
such  as  God  reserves  for  righteous  womanhood. 

I  want  you  to  look  upon  Vashti,  the  queen.  A  blue  ribbon,  rayed  with 
white,  drawn  around  her  forehead,  indicating  her  queenly  position,  it  was  no 
small  honor  to  be  the  queen  in  such  a  realm  as  that.  Hark  to  tiie  rustle  of  her 
robes  !  See  the  blaze  of  her  jewels  !  And  yet  it  is  not  necessa:-^-  to  have  palace 
and  regal  robe  to  be  queenlj^  When  I  see  a  woman  with  stout  faith  in  God, 
putting  her  foot  upon  all  meanness  and  selfishness  and  godless  display,  going  right 
forward  to  serve  Christ  and  the  race  by  a  grand  and  glorious  service,  I  say,  "  That 
woman  is  a  queen,"  and  the  ranks  of  heaven  look  over  the  battlements  upon  the 
coronation,  and  whether  she  come  up  from  the  shanty  on  the  commons  or  the 
mansion  of  the  fashionable  square,  I  greet  her  with  the  shout:  "All  hail  !  Queen 
Vashti."  What  glory  was  there  on  the  brow  of  Mary,  of  Scotland;  or  Elizabeth, 
of  lingland;  or  Margaret,  of  France;  or  Catharine,  of  Russia,  compared  with  the 
worth  of  some  of  our  Christian  mothers,  many  of  them  gone  into  glor>'  ?  Or  of 
that  woman  mentioned  in  the  Scriptures  who  put  her  all  into  the  Lord's  treasury  ? 
Or  of  Jephthah's  daughter,  who  made  a  demonstration  of  unselfish  patriotism? 
Or  of  Abigail,  who  rescued  the  herds  and  flocks  of  her  husband  ?     Or  of  Ruth,. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  IvlFK.  145 

who  toiled  under  a  tropical  sun  for  poor,  old,  helpless  Naomi?  Or  of  Mrs, 
Adonirani  Judson,  who  kindled  the  lights  of  salvation  amid  the  darkness  of 
Burmah  ?  Or  of  Mrs.  Hemans,  who  poured  out  her  holy  soul  in  words  which 
will  forever  be  associated  with  hunter's  horn  and  captive's  chain,  and  bridal  hour, 
and  lute's  throb,  and  curfew's  knell  at  the  dying  day?  And  scores  and  hundreds 
of  women,  unknown  on  earth,  who  have  given  water  to  the  thirsty,  and  bread  to 
the  hungry,  and  medicine  to  the  sick,  and  smiles  to  the  discouraged — their  foot- 
steps heard  along  dark  lane,  and  in  government  hospital,  and  in  almshouse  corri- 
dor, and  by  prison  gate?  There  may  be  no  royal  robe;  there  may  be  no  palatial 
surroundings.  She  does  not  need  them,  for  all  charitable  men  will  unite  with  the 
cracking  lips  of  fever-struck  hospital  and  plague-blotched  lazaretto  in  greeting  her 
as  she  passes:   "  Hail  !  Hail  !  Queen  Vashti." 

A  TRIBUTE  TO   FEMALE  TEACHERS. 

Among  the  queens  whom  I  honor  are  the  female  day-school  teachers  of  this 
land.  I  put  upon  their  brow  the  coronet.  They  are  the  sisters  and  the  daughters 
of  our  towns  and  cities,  selected  out  of  a  vast  number  of  applicants,  because 
of  their  especial  intellectual  and  moral  endowments.  There  are  in  none  of  your 
homes  w^omen  more  worthy.  These  persons,  some  of  them,  come  out  from 
affluent  homes,  choosing  teaching  as  a  useful  profession;  others,  finding  that  their 
father  is  older  than  he  used  to  be,  and  that  his  eye-sight  and  strength  are  not  as 
good  as  once,  go  to  teaching  to  lighten  his  load.  But  I  tell  you  the  history-  of 
the  majority  of  the  female  teachers  in  the  public  schools  when  I  say,  "  Father  is 
dead."  After  the  estate  was  settled  the  family,  that  were  comfortable  before,  are 
thrown  on  their  own  resources. 

It  is  hard  for  men  to  earn  a  living  in  this  day,  but  it  is  harder  for  women 
their  health  not  so  rugged,  their  arm  not  so  strong,  their  opportunities  fewer. 
These  persons,  after  tremblingly  going  through  the  ordeal  of  an  examination  as  to 
their  qualifications  to  teach,  half-bewildered  step  over  the  sill  of  the  public  school 
to  do  two  things — instruct  the  young  and  earn  their  own  bread.  Her  work  is 
wearing  to  the  last  degree.  The  management  of  forty  or  fifty  fidgety  and  intract- 
able children,  the  suppression  of  their  vices  and  the  development  of  their  excel- 
lences, the  management  of  rewards  and  punishments,  the  sending  of  so  many  bar# 
of  soap  and  fine  tooth  combs  on  benignant  ministry,  the  breaking  of  so  many  wild 
colts  for  the  harness  of  life,  send  her  home  at  night  weak,  neuralgic,  unstrung,  so 
that  of  all  the  weary  people  in  your  cities  for  five  nights  of  the  week  there  are 
none  more  weary  than  the  public  school  teachers.  Now,  for  God's  sake,  give 
them  a  fair  chance.  Throw  no  obstacles  in  the  wa}'.  If  they  come  out  ahead  in 
the  race,  cheer  them.  If  you  want  to  smite  any,  smite  the  male  teachers;  they 
can  take  up  the  cudgels  for  themselves.     But  keep  your  hands  off  of  defenceless 


145  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

women.  Father  may  be  dead,  but  there  are  enough  brothers  left  to  demand  and 
see  that  the}-  get  justice. 

Within  a  stone's  throw  of  where  I  now  write  there  died,  years  ago,  one  of  the 
principals  of  our  public  schools.  She  had  been  twenty-five  years  at  that  post. 
She  had  left  the  touch  of  refinement  on  a  multitude  of  the  young.  She  had,  out 
of  her  slender  purse,  given  literally  thousands  of  dollars  for  the  destitute  who  came 
under  her  observation  as  a  school  teacher.  A  deceased  sister's  children  were 
thrown  upon  her  hands,  and  she  took  care  of  them.  She  was  a  kind  mother  to 
them,  while  she  mothered  a  whole  school.  Worn  out  with  nursing  in  the  sick 
and  dying  room  of  one  of  her  household,  she  herself  came  to  die.  She  closed  the 
school  book  and  at  the  same  time  the  volume  of  her  Christian  fidelity;  and  when 
she  went  through  the  gates  they  cried:  "  These  are  they  who  came  out  of  great 
triljulation,  and  had  their  robes  washed  and  made  white  in  the  blood  of  the 
lamb. ' ' 

Queens  are  all  such,  and  whether  the  world  acknowledge  them  or  not,  heaven 
acknowledges  them. 

When  Scarron,  the  wit  and  ecclesiastic,  as  poor  as  he  was  brilliant,  was  about 
to  marry  Madame  de  Maintenon,  he  was  asked  by  the  notarj'  what  lie  proposed  to 
settle  upon  Mademoiselle.  The  reply  was:  "  Immortality  !  The  names  of  the 
wives  of  kings  die  with  them:  the  name  of  the  wife  of  Scarron  will  live  always." 

In  a  higher  and  better  sense,  upon  all  women  who  do  their  duty  to  God  will 
settle  immortality.  Not  the  immortality  of  earthly  fame,  which  is  mortal,  but 
the  innnortality  celestial.     And  they  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever. 

GOETHE  AND  SHAKESPEARE'S   IDEAS  OF  WOMEN. 

Oh  !  the  opportunity  which  every  woman  has  of  being  a  queen.  The  longer 
I  liv'e  the  more  I  admire  good  womanhood.  And  I  have  come  to  form  my  opinion 
of  the  character  of  a  man  by  his  appreciation  or  non-appreciation  of  woman.  If 
a  man  have  a  depressed  idea  of  womanly  character  he  is  a  bad  man,  and  there  is 
no  exception  to  the  rule.  The  writings  of  Goethe  can  never  have  any  such 
attractions  for  me  as  Shakespeare,  because  nearly  all  the  womanly  characters  of 
the  great  German  have  some  kind  of  turpitude.  There  is  his  Mariana,  with  her 
clandestine  scheming;  and  his  Mignon,  of  evil  parentage,  yet  worse  than  her 
ancestors;  and  his  Theresa,  the  brazen;  and  his  Aurelia,  of  many  intrigues;  and 
his  Philina,  the  termagant;  and  his  Melina,  the  tarni.shed;  and  his  Baroness  and 
his  Countess,  and  there  is  seldom  a  womanly  character  ui  all  his  voluminous  writ- 
ings that  would  be  worthy  of  residence  in  a  respectable  coal  cellar,  yet  pictured 
and  dramatized  and  emblazoned  till  all  the  literarj^  world  is  compelled  to  see.  No, 
no.  Give  me  William  vShakespeare's  idea  of  woman,  and  I  see  it  in  Desdemona, 
and  Cordelia,  and  Rosalind,  and  Imogen,  and  Helena,  and  Hermione,  and  Viola, 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


147 


and  Isabella,  and  Sylvia,  and  Perdita,  all  of  them  with  enough  faults  to  prove 
them  human,  but  enough  kindly  characteristics  to  give  us  the  author's  idea  of 
womanhood,  his  I^ady  Macbeth  only  a  dark 
background  to  bring  out  the  supreme  love- 
liness of  his  other  female  characters. 

I    want   you   to   consider  Vashti, 
the  veiled.     Had  she  appeared  before 
Ahasuerus   and   his  court   on 
that   day   with    her    face   un- 
covered,   she    would    have 
shocked   all  the   delicacies  of 
Oriental  society,  and  the  very 
men  who  in  their  intoxication 
demanded   that   she   come, 
in    their   sober    moments 
would   have    despised   her. 
As   some   flowers    seem    to 
thrive  best  in  the  dark  lane 
and    in    the    shadow,    and 
where  the  sun  does  not  seem 
to  reach  them,  so  God  ap- 
points    to     most    womanly 
natures  a  retiring  and  un- 
obtrusive spirit.     God  once 
in    a   while  does  call  an 
Isabella  to  a  throne,  or 
a  Miriam  to  strike 
the   timbrel 
at  the  front 
of    a   host, 
or  a   Marie 
Antoinette 
to   quell    a 
French  mob, 
or  a  Deborah 
to    stand   at 
the  front  of 
an     armed 
battalion, 
crying  out;    ' '  Up  !  up  !  this  is  the  day  in  which  the  Lord   will   deliver  Sisera 


THE   GUARDIAN    ANGEI.. 


148  THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 

into  thy  hands."  And  when  women  are  called  to  such  out-door  work,  and 
to  such  heroic  positions,  God  prepares  them  for  it;  and  they  have  iron  in  their 
soul,  and  lightnings  in  their  eye,  and  whirlwinds  in  their  breath,  and  the  borrowed 
strength  of  the  I^ord  omnipotent  in  their  right  arm.  They  walk  through  furnaces 
as  though  they  were  hedges  of  wild  flowers,  and  cross  seas  as  though  they  were 
shimmering  sapphire,  and  all  the  harpies  of  hell  sink  down  to  their  dungeons  at 
the  stamp  of  their  womanly  indignation.  But  these  are  exceptions.  Generally, 
Dorcas  would  rather  make  a  garment  for  the  poor  boy,  Rebecca  would  rather  fill 
the  trough  for  the  camels,  Hannah  would  rather  make  a  coat  for  vSamuel,  the 
Hebrew  maid  would  rather  give  a  prescription  for  Naaman's  leprosy,  the  woman 
of  Sarepta  would  rather  gather  a  few  sticks  to  cook  a  meal  for  famished  Elijah, 
Phebe  would  rather  carry  a  letter  for  the  inspired  apostle,  Mother  L,ois  would 
rather  educate  Timothy  in  the  Scriptures.  When  I  see  a  woman  going  about  her 
daily  duty — with  cheerful  dignity  presiding  at  the  table,  with  kind  and  gentle,  but 
firm,  discipline,  presiding  in  the  nursery,  going  out  into  the  world  without  any 
blast  of  trumpets,  following  in  the  footsteps  of  Him  who  went  about  doing  good — 
I  say,  "  This  is  Vashti  with  a  veil  on."  But  when  I  see  a  woman  of  unblushing 
boldness,  loud-voiced,  with  a  tongue  of  infinite  clitter-clatter,  with  arrogant  look, 
passing  through  the  streets  with  a  masculine  swing,  gaily  arrayed  in  a  very  hurri- 
cane of  millinery,  I  cry  out,  "Vashti  has  lost  her  veil. "  When  I  see  a  woman 
struggling  for  political  preferment,  and  rejecting  the  duties  of  home  as  insignifi- 
cant, and  thinking  the  offices  of  wife,  mother  and  daughter  of  no  importance,  and 
trying  to  force  her  way  on  up  into  conspicuit}^  I  say,  "Ah  !  what  a  pity;  Vashti  has 
lost  her  veil."  When  I  see  a  woman  of  comely  features,  and  of  adroitness  of 
intellect,  and  endowed  with  all  that  the  schools  can  do  for  her,  and  of  high  social 
position,  yet  moving  in  society  with  superciliousness  and  hauteur,  as  though  she 
would  have  people  know  their  place,  and  an  undefined  combination  of  giggle,  and 
strut,  and  rodomontade,  endowed  with  allopathic  quantities  of  self,  but  only 
homoeopathic  infinitesimals  of  sense,  the  terror  of  dry-goods  clerks  and  railroad 
conductors,  discoverer  of  significant  meanings  in  plain  conversation,  a  prodigy  of 
badness  and  innuendoes — I  say,  "  Vashti  has  lost  her  veil." 

But  do  not  misinterpret  what  I  say  into  a  depreciation  of  the  work  of  those 
glorious  and  divinely  called  women  who  will  not  be  understood  till  after  the\'  are 
dead;  women  like  Susan  B.  Anthony,  who  are  giving  their  life  for  the  betterment 
of  the  condition  of  their  sex.  Those  of  you  who  think  that  women  have,  luider 
the  laws  of  this  country,  an  equal  chance  with  men,  are  ignorant  of  the  laws.  A 
gentleman  writes  me  from  Maryland,  saying:  "Take  the  laws  of  this  State.  A 
man  and  wife  start  out  in  life  full  of  hope  in  every  respect;  by  their  joint  effi^rts, 
and,  as  is  frequently  the  case,  through  the  economic  ideas  of  the  wife,  succeed  in 
accumulating  a  fortune,  but  they  have  no  children;  they  reach  old  age  together, 


VICTIMS  OF  THE  FRENCH  'scEvoi.vtio'i^.— Painted  by  Puul  Svedotiesky.        (149) 


I50 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


and  then  the  husband  dies.  What  does  the  law  of  this  State  do  then  ?  It  says 
to  the  widow,  Hands  off  your  late  husband's  property,  do  not  touch  it,  the  State 
will  find  others  to  whom  it  will  give  that;  but  you,  the  widow,  must  not  touch  it, 
only  so  much  as  will  keep  life  in  your  aged  body,  that  you  may  live  to  see  those 
others  enjoy  what  rightly  should  be  your  own."  And  the  State  seeks  the  relatives 
of  the  deceased  husband,  whether  they  be  near  or  far,  whether  they  were  ever 
heard  of  before  or  not,  and  transfers  to  them,  singly  or  collectively,  the  estate  of 
the  deceased  husband  and  living  widow. 


VASHTI,    THE   OUTCAST. 

Now,  that  is  a  specimen  of  the  unjust  laws  in  all  States  concerning  woman- 
hood. Instead  of  flying  off  to  the  discussion  as  to  whether  or  not  the  giving  of 
the  right  of  voting  to  women  will  correct  these  laws,  let  me  say  to  men,  be  gal- 
lant enough,  and  fair  enough,  and  honest  enough,  and  righteous  enough,  and 
God-loving  enough  to  correct  these  wrongs  against  women  by  your  own  masculine 
vote.  Do  not  wait  for  woman  suffrage  to  come,  if  it  ever  does  come,  but  so  far  as 
you  can  touch  ballot-boxes,  and  legislatures,  and  congresses,  begin  the  reforma- 
tion; but  until  justice  is  done  to  the  sex  by  the  laws  of  all  the  States,  let  women 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE.  151 

of  America  take  the  platforms  and  the  pulpits,  and  no  honorable  man  will  charge 
Vashti  with  having  lost  her  veil. 

Again,  I  want  you  to  consider  Vashti,  the  sacrifice.  Who  is  this  that  I  see 
coming  out  of  that  palace  gate  of  Shushan  ?  It  seems  to  nie  that  I  have  seen  her 
before.  She  comes  homeless,  houseless,  friendless,  trudging  along  with  a  broken 
heart.  Who  is  she  ?  It  is  Vashti,  the  sacrifice.  Oh,  what  a  change  it  was  from 
regal  position  to  a  wayfarer's  crust.  A  little  while  ago  approved  and  sought  for; 
now  none  so  poor  as  to  acknowledge  her  acquaintanceship.  Vashti,  the  sacrifice. 
Ah,  you  and  I  have  seen  it  many  a  time.  Here  is  a  home  empalaced  with  beauty. 
All  that  refinement,  and  books,  and  wealth  can  do  for  that  home  has  been  done; 
but  Ahasuerus,  the  husband  and  the  father,  is  taking  hold  on  paths  of  sin.  He  is 
gradually  going  down.  After  a  time  he  will  flounder  and  struggle  like  a  wild 
beast  in  the  hunter's  net — further  away  from  God,  further  away  from  the  right. 
Soon  the  bright  apparel  of  the  children  will  turn  to  rags;  soon  the  household  song 
will  become  the  sobbing  of  a  broken  heart.  The  old  story  over  again.  Brutal 
Centaurs  breaking  up  the  marriage  feast  of  Lapithse.  The  house  full  of  outrage, 
and  cruelty  and  abomination,  while  trudging  forth  from  the  palace  gate  are  Vushti 
and  her  children.  O  Ahasuerus,  that  you  should  stand  in  a  home,  by  a  dissipated 
life  destroj'ing  the  peace  and  comfort  of  that  home.  God  forbid  that  your  children 
should  ever  have  to  ring  their  hands,  and  have  people  point  their  finger  at  them, 
as  they  pass  down  the  street  and  say,  "There  goes  a  drunkard's  child."  God 
forbid  that  the  little  feet  vShould  ever  have  to  trudge  the  path  of  poverty  and 
wretchedness.  God  forbid  that  any  evil  spirit,  born  of  the  wine  cup  or  the  brandy 
flask  should  come  forth  and  uproot  that  garden,  and,  with  a  blasting,  blistering, 
all-consuming  curse,  shut  forever  the  palace  gate  against  Vashti  and  the  children. 

Oh,  the  women  and  the  men  of  sacrifice  are  going  to  take  the  brightest 
coronals  of  heaven.  This  woman  gave  up  a  palatial  residence,  gave  up  all  for 
what  she  considered  right.     Sacrifice  !     Is  there  anything  more  sublime  ! 

MARTYRS   TO   DUTY. 

A  steamer,  called  the  Prairie  Belle,  burning  on  the  Mississippi  River,  Bludso, 
the  engineer,  declared  he  would  keep  the  bow  of  the  boat  to  the  shore  till  all  were 
ofiT,  and  he  kept  his  promise.  At  his  post,  scorched  and  blackened,  he  perished, 
but  he  saved  all  the  passengers.  Two  verses  of  pathetic  poetry  describe  the  scene, 
but  the  venses  are  a  little  rough,  and  so  I  changed  a  word  or  two: 

Through  the  hot,  black  breath  of  the  burning 

Jim  Bludso's  voice  was  heard, 
And  they  all  had  trust  in  his  stubbornness, 

And  knew  he  would  keep  his  word. 


152  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

*  And  sure's  you're  born,  they  all  got  off 

Afore  the  smoke- stacks  fell; 
And  Bludso's  ghost  went  up  above 
In  the  smoke  of  the  Prairie  Belle. 

He  weren't  no  saint,  but  at  Judgment 

I'd  run  my  chance  with  Jim 
'Longside  of  some  pious  gentlemen 

That  wouldn't  shake  hands  with  him. 
He'd  seen  his  duty,  a  dead  sure  thing, 

And  went  for  it  there  and  then, 
And  Christ  is  not  going  to  be  too  hard 

On  a  man  that  died  for  men. 

I  want  you  to  look  at  Vashti,  the  silent.  You  do  not  hear  an}^  outer}-  from 
this  woman  as  she  goes  forth  from  the  palace  gate.  From  the  very  dignity  of  her 
nature  3'ou  know  there  will  be  no  vociferation.  Sometimes  in  life  it  is  necessary 
to  make  a  retort;  sometimes  in  life  it  is  necessary  to  resist;  but  there  are  crises 
when  the  most  triumphant  thing  to  do  is  to  keep  silence.  The  philosopher,  con- 
fident in  his  newly  discovered  principle,  waited  for  the  coming  of  more  intelligent 
generations,  willing  that  men  should  laugh  at  the  lightning  rod  and  cotton  gin 
and  steamboat — waiting  for  long  years  through  the  scoffing  of  philosophical 
schools,  in  grand  and  magnificent  silence.  Galileo,  condemned  by  mathemati- 
cians, and  monks,  and  cardinals;  caricatured  everywhere,  yet  waiting  and  watch- 
ing with  his  telescope  to  see  the  coming  up  of  stellar  re-enforcements,  when  the 
stars  in  their  courses  would  fight  for  the  Copernican  system;  then  sitting  down  in 
complete  blindness  and  deafness  to  wait  for  the  coming  on  of  the  generations  who 
would  build  his  monument  and  bow  at  his  grave.  The  reformer,  execrated  by 
his  contemporaries,  fastened  in  a  pillor}^  the  slow  fires  of  public  contempt 
burning  under  him,  ground  under  the  cjdinders  of  the  printing  press,  3'et  calmly 
waiting  for  the  day  when  purity  of  soul  and  heroism  of  character  will  get  the 
sanction  of  earth  and  the  plaudits  of  heaven.  Affliction,  enduring  without  any 
complaint  the  sharpness  of  the  pang,  and  the  violence  of  the  storm,  and  the  heft 
of  the  chain,  and  the  darkness  of  the  night — waiting  until  a  divine  hand  shall  be 
put  forth  to  sooth  the  pang,  and  hush  the  storm,  and  release  the  captive.  A  wife 
abused,  persecuted,  and  a  perpetual  exile  from  every  earthly  comfort — waiting, 
waiting,  until  the  Eord  shall  gather  up  His  dear  children  in  a  heavenly  home, 
and  no  poor  Vashti  will  ever  be  thrust  out  from  the  palace  gate.  Jesus,  in  silence, 
and  answering  not  a  word,  drinking  the  gall,  bearing  the  cross,  in  prospect  of  the 

rapturous  consummation  when 

# 

Angels  thronged  His  chariot  wheel, 

And  bore  Him  to  His  throne; 
Then  swept  their  golden  harps  and  sung, — 

"  The  glorious  work  is  done. " 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


153 


All  Arctic  explorer  found  a  ship  floating  helplessly  about  among  the  icebergs, 
and  going  on  board  he  found  that  the  captain  was  frozen  at  his  log  book,  and  the 
helmsman  was  frozen  at  the  wheel,  and  the  men  on  the  lookout  where  frozen  in 
their  places,  ^hat  was  awful,  but  magnificent.  All  the  Arctic  blasts  and  all  the 
icebergs  could  not  drive  them  from  their  duty.  Their  silence  was  louder  than 
thunder.  And  this  old  ship  of  a  world  has  many  at  their  posts  in  the  awful  chill 
of  neglect,  and  frozen  of  the  world's  scorn,  and  their  silence  shall  be  the  eulogy 
of  the  skies,  and  be  rewarded  long  after  this  weather-beaten  craft  of  a  planet  shall 
have  made  its  last  voyage. 

I  thank  God  that  the  mightiest  influences  are  the  most  silent.  The  fires  in  a 
furnace  of  a  factory,  or  of  a  steamship,  roar,  though  they  only  move  a  few 
shuttles  or  a  few  thousand  tons;  but  the  sun  that  warms  a  world  rises  and  sets 
without  a  crackle,  or  the  faintest  sound.  Travelers  visiting  Mount  ^tna,  having 
heard  of  the  glories  of  sunrise  on  that  peak,  went  up  to  spend  the  night  there 
and  see  the  sun  rise  next  morning;  but  when  it  came  up  it  was  so  far  behind 
their  anticipations  they  actually  hissed  it.  The  mightiest  influences  to-day  are 
like  the  planetary  system — completely  silent.     Don' t  hiss  the  sun  ! 

O  woman  !  does  not  this  story  of  Vashti  the  queen,  Vashti  the  veiled,  Vashti 
the  sacrifice,  Vashti  the  silent,  move  your  soul  ? 

When  Rome  was  besieged,  the  daughter  of  its  ruler  saw  the  golden  bracelets 
on  the  left  arms  of  the  enemy,  and  she  sent  word  to  them  that  she  would  betray 
her  city  and  surrender  it  to  them  if  they  would  only  give  her  those  bracelets 
on  their  left  arms.  They  accepted  the  proffer,  and  by  night  this  daughter  of  the 
ruler  of  the  city  opened  one  of  the  gates.  The  army  entered,  and,  keeping  their 
promise,  threw  upon  her  their  bracelets,  and  also  their  shields,  until  under  their 
weight  she  died.  Alas,  that  all  through  the  ages  the  same  folly  has  been  repeated, 
and  for  the  trinkets  and  glittering  treasures  of  this  world,  men  and  women  swing 
open  the  portals  of  their  immortal  soul  for  an  everlasting  surrender,  and  die 
under  the  shining  submergement. 

Through  the  rich  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  may  j^ou  be  enabled  to 
imitate  the  example  of  Rachel,  and  Hannah,  and  Abigail,  and  Deborah,  and 
Mary,  and  Vashti. 


^lyah  itit^  ^j^si^itij;!^ 


THE  POWER  OF  A  WIFE  OVER  HER  HUSBAND,  AND   HOW   IT  SHOULD   BE  EMPLOYED. 

NE  day  King  Ahab,  looking  out  of  the  window  of  his  palace  at 
Jezreel,  said  to  his  wife  Jezebel:  "We  ought  to  have  these 
royal  gardens  enlarged.  If  we  could  only  get  that  fellow, 
Naboth,  who  owns  that  vineyard  out  there,  to  trade  or  sell, 
we  could  make  it  a  kitchen  garden  for  our  palace." 

"  Fetch    in    Naboth,"    says    the    king    to    one  of    his 
servants. 

The  gardener,  wondering  wh}^  he  should  be  called  into  the  presence  of  his 
Majesty,  comes  in  a  little  downcast  in  his  modesty  and  with  verj^  obsequious  man- 
ner bows  to  the  king.  The  king  says:  "  Naboth,  I  w^ant  to  trade  vineyards  with 
you.  I  want  your  vineyard  for  a  kitchen  garden,  and  I  will  give  you  a  great  deal 
better  vineyard  in  place  of  it;  or,  if  you  prefer  money  for  it,  I  will  give  you 
cash." 

"  Oh,  no,"  says  Naboth.  "  I  cannot  trade  off  my  little  place,  nor  can  I  sell 
it.  It  is  the  old  homestead.  I  got  it  of  my  father,  and  he  of  his  father,  and  I 
cannot  let  the  old  place  go  out  of  my  hands. ' ' 

In  a  great  state  of  petulancy,  King  Ahab  went  into  the  house  and  flung  him- 
self on  the  bed  and  turned  his  face  to  the  wall  in  a  great  pout.  His  wife  Jezebel 
comes  in  and  she  says:     ' '  What  is  the  matter  with  you  ?     Are  you  sick  ?" 

"Oh,"  he  .says,  "I  feel  very  blue.  I  have  set  my  heart  on  getting  that 
kitchen  garden,  and  Naboth  will  neither  trade  nor  sell,  and  to  be  defeated  by  a 
common  gardener  is  more  than  I  can  stand." 

"Oh,  pshaw,"  says  Jezebel;  "don't  go  on  that  way.  Get  up  and  eat  your 
dinner  and  stop  moping.      I  will  get  for  you  that  kitchen  garden." 

Then  Jezebel  borrowed  her  husband's  signet  or  seal,  for  then,  as  now,  in 
those  lands  kings  never  signed  their  names,  but  had  a  ring  with  the  royal  name 
engraved  on  it,  and  that  impressed  on  a  royal  letter  or  document  was  the  signa- 
ture. She  stamped  her  husband's  name  on  a  proclamation,  which  resulted  in  get- 
ting Naboth  tried  for  treason  against  the  king,  and  two  perjured  witnesses  swore 
their  souls  away  with  the  life  of  Naboth,  and  he  was  stoned  to  death  and  his  prop- 
erty came  to  the  crown,  and  .so  Jezebel  got  for  her  husband  and  herself  the  kitchen 
garden. 

(154) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  i55 

But  vvhile  the  wild  street  dogs  were  busy  rending  the  dead  body  of  poor 
Naboth,  Elijah,  the  prophet,  tells  them  of  other  canines  that  will  after  a  while 
have  a  free  banquet,  saying:  "Where  dogs  lick  the  blood  of  Naboth  shall  dogs 
lick  thy  blood,  even  thine." 

THE  RESULT  OF  A  WIFE'S  BAD  ADVICE. 

And  sure  enough,  three  years  after,  Ahab  wounded  in  battle,  his  chariot  drip- 
ping with  the  carnage,  dogs  stood  under  it  lapping  his  life's  blood.  And  a  little 
afterward  his  wife,  Jezebel,  who  had  been  his  chief  adviser  in  crime,  stands  at  her 
palace  window  and  sees  Jehu,  the  enemy,  approaching  to  take  possession  of  the 
palace.  And  to  make  herself  look  as  attractive  as  possible  and  queenly  to  the  very 
last,  she  decorated  her  person,  and  according  to  Oriental  custom  closed  her  eyes, 
and  ran  a  brush  dipped  in  black  powder  along  the  long  eyelashes,  and  then  from 
the  window  she  glared  her  indignation  upon  Jehu.  As  he  rode  to  the  gates  in  his 
chariot  he  shouted  to  the  slaves  in  her  room:  "  Throw  her  down  !"  But  no  doubt 
the  slaves  halted  a  moment  from  such  work  of  assassination,  yet,  knowing  Queen. 
Jezebel  could  be  no  more  to  them  and  the  conqueror  Jehu  would  be  everything, 
as  he  shouted  again:  "Throw  her  down,"  they  seized  her  and  bore  her  strug- 
gling and  cursing  to  the  window  casement  and  hurled  her  forth  until  she  came 
tumbling  to  the  earth,  striking  it  just  in  time  to  let  Jehu's  horses  trample  her  and 
the  chariot  wheels  roll  over  her.  While  Jehu  is  inside  at  the  table  refreshing  him- 
self after  the  excitement  he  orders  his  servants  to  go  and  bury  the  dead  queen. 
But  the  wild  street  dogs  had  for  the  third  time  appeared  on  the  scene,  and  they 
had  removed  all  her  body  except  those  parts  which  in  all  ages  dogs  are  by  a  strange 
instinct  or  brutal  superstition  kept  from  touching  after  death — the  palms  of  the 
hands  and  the  soles  of  the  feet. 

All  this  appalling  scene  of  ancient  history  was  the  result  of  a  wife's  bad 
advice  to  a  husband,  of  a  wife's  struggle  to  advance  her  husband's  interests  by 
unlawful  means.  Ahab  and  Jezebel  got  the  kitchen  garden  of  Naboth,  but  the 
dogs  got  them.  The  trouble  all  began  when  this  mistaken  wife  aroused  her  hus- 
band out  of  his  melancholy  by  the  words:  "Arise,  and  eat  bread,  and  let  thine 
heart  be  merry;  I  will  give  thee  the  vineyard  of  Naboth." 

The  influence  suggested  by  this  subject  is  an  influence  3^ou  never  before  read 
much  about  perhaps,  and  may  never  read  of  again,  but  it  is  a  most  potent  and 
semi-omnipotent  influence,  and  decides  the  course  of  individuals,  families,  nations, 
centuries  and  eternities.  I  speak  of  wifely  ambition,  good  and  bad.  How  impor- 
tant that  every  wife  have  her  ambition,  an  elevated,  righteous  and  divinely 
approved  ambition. 


156  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

ILLUSTRIOUS   EXAMPLES   OF  WIFELY  DEVOTION. 

No  one  can  so  inspire  a  man  to  noble  purposes  as  a  noble  woman,  and  no  one  ' 
so  thoroughly  degrade  a  man  as  a  wife  of  unworthy  tendencies.  While  in  the  case 
of  Jezebel  we  have  an  illustration  of  wifely  ambition  employed  in  the  wrong 
direction,  society  and  history  are  full  of  instances  of  wifely  ambition  gloriously 
triumphant  in  right  directions.  All  that  was  worth  admiration  in  the  character  of 
Henry  VI.  was  a  reflection  of  the  heroics  of  his  wife  Margaret.  William,  Prince 
of  Orange,  was  restored  to  the  right  path  by  the  grand  qualities  of  his  wife  Mary. 
Justinian,  the  Roman  Emperor,  confesses  that  his  wise  laws  were  the  suggestions 
of  his  wife  Theodora.  Judith  served  her  people  by  killing  Holofernes.  Andrew 
Jackson,  the  warrior  and  President,  had  his  mightiest  re-enforcement  in  his  plain 
wife,  whose  inartistic  attire  was  the  amusement  of  the  elegant  circles  in  which  she 
was  invited.  Washington,  who  broke  the  chain  that  held  America  in  foreign  vas- 
salage, wore  for  forty  years  a  chain  around  his  own  neck,  that  chain  holding  the 
miniature  likeness  of  her  who  had  been  his  greatest  inspiration,  whether  among 
the  snows  at  Valley  Forge  or  amid  the  honors  of  the  presidential  chair.  Pliny's 
pen  was  driven  through  all  its  poetic  and  historical  dominions  b}'  his  wife.  Cal- 
purnia,  who  sang  his  stanzas  to  the  sound  of  flute  and  sat  among  audiences  enrap- 
tured at  her  husband's  genius,  herself  the  most  enraptured.  Pericles  said  he  got 
all  his  eloquence  and  statesmanship  from  his  wife.  When  the  wife  of  Grotius 
rescued  him  from  long  imprisonment  at  Lovestein  by  means  of  a  bookcase  that 
went  in  and  out,  carrying  his  books  to  and  fro,  he  was  one  day  transported,  hidden 
amid  the  folios;  and  the  women  of  besieged  Weinsberg,  getting  permission  from 
the  victorious  army  to  take  with  them  so  much  of  their  valuables  as  they  could 
carr)',  under  cover  of  the  promise  shouldered  and  took  with  them  as  the  most 
important  valuables  their  husbands — both  achievements  in  a  literal  way  illustrated 
what  thousands  of  times  has  been  done  in  a  figurative  way,  that  wifely  ambition 
has  been  the  salvation  of  men. 

De  Tocqueville,  whose  writings  will  be  potential  and  quoted  while  the  world 
lasts,  ascribes  his  successes  to  his  wife,  and  says:  "  Of  all  the  blessings  wdiich  God 
has  given  to  me,  the  greatest  of  all  in  my  eyes  is  to  have  lighted  on  Maria  Motley." 

]\Iartin  lyUther  says  of  his  wife:  "  I  would  not  exchange  my  povert}'  with  her 
for  all  the  riches  of  Croesus  without  her." 

Isabella,  of  vSpain,  by  her  superior  f^aith  in  Columbus,  put  into  the  hand  of 
Ferdinand,  her  husband,  America. 

John  Adams,  President  of  the  United  States,  said  of  his  wife:  "  She  never,  by 
word  or  look,  discouraged  me  from  running  all  hazards  for  the  salvation  of  my 
country's  liberties. ' ' 

Thomas  Carlyle  spent  the  last  twenty  j-ears  of  his  life  in  trying  by  his  pen  to 
atone  for  the  fact  that  during  his  wife's  life  he  never  appreciated  her  influence  on 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE.  i57 

his  career  and  destiny.  Alas,  that  having  taken  her  from  a  beautiful  home  and 
a  brilliant  career,  he  should  have  buried  her  in  the  home  of  a  recluse  and  scolded 
her  in  such  language  as  only  a  dyspeptic  genius  could  manage,  until  one  day, 
while  in  her  invalidism,  riding  in  Hyde  Park,  her  pet  dog  got  run  over,  and 
under  the  excitement  the  coachman  found  her  dead.  Then  the  literary  giant 
woke  from  his  conjugal  injustice  and  wrote  the  lamentations  of  Craigen-puttock 
and  Cheyne  Row.  The  elegant  and  fulsome  epitaphs  that  husbands  put  upon 
their  wives'  tombstones  are  often  an  attempt  to  make  up  for  lack  of  appreciative 
words  that  should  have  been  uttered  in  the  ears  of  the  living.  A  whole  Greenwood 
of  monumental  inscriptions  will  not  do  a  wife  so  much  good  after  she  has  quit  the 
world  as  one  plain  sentence  like  that  which  Tom  Hood  wrote  to  his  living  wife 
when  he  said:   "  I  never  was  anything  till  I  knew  you." 

0  woman,  what  is  your  wifely  ambition — noble  or  ignoble  ?  Is  it  high  social 
position  ?  That  will  then  probably  direct  your  husband,  and  he  will  climb  and 
scramble  and  slip  and  fall  and  rise  and  tumble,  and  on  what  level  or  in  what  depth 
or  on  what  height  he  will  after  a  while  be  found  I  cannot  even  guess.  The  contest 
for  social  position  is  the  most  unsatisfactory  contest  in  all  the  world,  because  it  is 
so  uncertain  about  your  getting  it,  and  so  insecure  a  possession  after  j-ou  have 
obtained  it,  and  so  unsatisfactory  even  if  you  keep  it.  The  whisk  of  a  lady's  fan 
may  blow  it  out ;  the  growl  of  one  bear  or  the  bellowing  of  one  bull  on  Wall  street 
may  scatter  it. 

Is  the  wife's  ambition  the  political  preferment  of  her  husband?  Then  that 
will  probably  direct  him.  What  a  God-forsaken  realm  is  American  politics  those 
best  know  who  have  dabbled  in  them.  After  they  have  assessed  a  man  who  is  a 
candidate  for  an  office  which  he  does  not  get,  or  assessed  him  for  some  office 
attained,  and  he  has  been  whirled  round  and  round,  and  round  and  round  among 
the  drinking,  smoking,  swearing  crowd,  who  often  get  control  of  public  affairs,  all 
that  is  left  of  his  self-respect  or  moral  stamina  would  find  plenty  of  room  on  a 
geometrical  point,  which  is  said  to  have  neither  length,  breadth  nor  thickness. 
Many  a  wife  has  not  been  satisfied  till  her  husband  went  into  politics,  but  would 
afterwards  have  given  all  she  possessed  to  get  him  out. 

RUINED   BY  HIS  WIFE'S  SOCIAL  AMBITION. 

1  knew  a  highly  moral  man,  useful  in  the  church  and  possessor  of  a  bright 
home.  He  had  a  useful  and  prosperous  business,  but  his  wife  did  not  think  it 
genteel  enough.  There  were  odors  about  the  business,  and  sometimes  the}-  would 
adhere  to  his  garments  when  he  returned  at  night.  She  insisted  on  his  doing 
something  more  elegant,  although  he  was  qualified  for  no  business  except  that  in 
which  he  was  engaged.  To  please  her  he  changed  his  business,  and,  in  order  to 
get  on  faster,  abandoned  church  attendance,  saying  after  he  had  made  a  certain 


158  THE  PATHWAY  OF  IvlFE. 

number  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  he  would  return  to  the  church  and  its 
service. 

Where  is  that  family  to-day  ? 

Obliterated.  Although  succeeding  in  business  for  which  he  was  qualified,  he 
undertook  a  style  of  merchandise  for  which  he  had  no  qualification,  and  soon  went 
into  bankruptcy.  His  new  style  of  business  put  him  into  evil  association.  He 
lost  his  morals  as  well  as  his  mone}-.  He  broke  up  not  onl}-  his  own  home,  but 
broke  up  another  man's  home,  and  from  being  a  kind,  pure,  generous,  moral  man 
he  has  become  a  homeless,  penniless  libertine.  His  wife's  ambition  for  a  more 
genteel  business  destroyed  him,  and  disgraced  her,  and  blighted  their  onl}-  child. 

But  suppose  now  there  be  in  our  homes,  as,  thank  God,  there  are  in  hundreds 
of  homes  represented  by  the  readers  of  this  book,  on  the  wifeh^  throne  one  who 
says  not  only  by  her  words,  but  more  powerfully  by  her  actions:  "  IMy  husband, 
our  destinies  are  united.  Let  us  see  where  industr}-,  honest}-,  common  sense  and 
faith  in  God  w-ill  put  us.  I  am  with  you  in  all  your  enterprises.  I  cannot  be 
with  }-ou  in  person  as  }-ou  go  to  your  daily  business,  but  I  will  be  with  }-ou  in  my 
prayers.  Let  us  see  what  we  can  achieve  by  having  God  in  our  hearts,  and  God 
in  our  lives,  and  God  in  ovir  home.  Be  on  the  side  of  everything  good.  Go  ahead 
and  do  your  best,  and  though  everything  should  turn  out  different  from  what  we 
have  calculated,  you  may  always  count  on  two  who  are  going  to  help  you,  and 
Ood  is  one  and  I  am  the  other." 

That  man  may  have  feeble  health,  and  may  meet  with  many  obstacles  and 
business  trials,  but  he  is  coming  gloriously  through,  for  he  is  re-enforced,  and 
inspired,  and  spurred  on  by  a  woman's  voice,  as  much  as  was  Barak  by  Deborah 
when  Sisera  with  900  iron  chariots  came  on  to  crush  him  and  his  army,  and 
Deborah  shouted  in  the  ear  of  Barak:  "Up!  for  this  is  the  day  in  which  the 
Lord  hath  delivered  Sisera  into  thine  hands."  And  the  enemy  fell  back,  and 
Sisera's  chariot  not  getting  along  fast  enough  in  the  retreat,  the  general  jumped 
out  and  took  it  afoot,  and  ran  till  he  came  to  a  place  where  a  woman  first  gave  him 
a  drink  of  milk  and  then  sent  a  .spike  through  his  skull,  nailing  him  to  the  floor. 

vSome  of  us  could  tell  of  what  influence  upon  us  has  been  a  wifely  ambition 
<:onsecrated  to  righteousness.  I  have  often  been  called  of  God,  as  I  thought,  to 
run  into  the  very  teeth  of  public  opinion,  and  all  outsiders  with  whom  I  advised 
told  me  I  had  better  not,  it  would  ruin  me  and  ruin  m\-  church,  and  at  the  same 
time  I  was  receiving  nice  little  letters  threatening  me  with  dirk  and  pistol  and 
poison  if  I  persisted  in  attacking  certain  evils  of  the  day,  mitil  the  Commissioner  of 
Police  considered  it  his  duly  to  take  his  place  in  our  Sabbath  services  with  forty 
officers  scattered  through  the  house  for  the  preservation  of  order,  but  in  my  home 
there  has  always  been  one  voice  to  say:  ' '  Go  ahead,  and  diverge  not  an  inch  from 
the  straight  line.     Who  cares  if  only  God  is  on  our  side  ?" 


i-,9J 


i6o  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

And  though  sometimes  it  seemed  as  if  I  was  going  out  against  900  iron 
chariots,  I  went  ahead,  cheered  bj'  the  domestic  voice. 

A  man  is  no  better  than  his  wife  will  let  him  be.  O  wives  of  America,  .sway 
your  .sceptres  of  wifely  influence  for  God  and  good  homes  !  Do  not  urge  your 
hu.sbands  to  annex  Naboth's  vineyard  to  your  palace  of  success,  whether  right  or 
wrong,  lest  the  dogs  that  come  out  todestroy  Naboth  come  out  also  to  devour  you. 
Righteousness  will  pay  best  in  life,  will  pay  best  in  death,  will  pay  Ijest  in  the 
judgment,  will  pay  best  through  all  eternity. 

HOME  INFLUENCE  ON   HUSBANDS. 

In  our  efforts  to  have  the  mother  of  every  household  appreciate  her  influence 
over  her  children  we  are  apt  to  forget  the  wife's  influence  over  the  husband.  In 
many  households  the  influence  upon  the  husband  is  the  only  home  influence.  In 
a  great  multitude  of  the  best  and  most  important  and  most  talented  families  of  the 
earth  there  have  been  no  descendants.  There  is  not  a  child  or  a  grandchild,  or  any 
remote  descendant  of  Washington,  or  Charles  Sumner,  or  Shakespeare,  or  Edmund 
Burke,  or  Pitt,  or  Lord  Nelson,  or  Cowper,  or  Pope,  or  Addison,  or  Johnson,  or 
Lord  Chatham,  or  Grattan,  or  Isaac  Newton,  or  Goldsmith,  or  Swift,  or  Locke, 
or  Gibbon,  or  Walpole,  or  Canning,  or  Dryden,  or  Moore,  or  Chaucer,  or  Lord 
Byron,  or  Walter  Scott,  or  Oliver  Cromwell,  or  Garrick,  or  Hogarth,  or  Joshua 
RcN'nolds,  or  Spenser,  or  Lord  Bacon,  or  Macaulay.  Multitudes  of  the  finest 
families  of  the  earth  are  extinct.  As  though  they  had  done  enough  for  the  world 
by  their  genius  or  wit,  or  patriotism,  or  invention,  or  consecration,  God  withdrew 
them.  In  multitudes  of  cases  all  woman's  opportunity  for  usefulness  is  with 
her  contemporaries.     How  important  that  it  be  an  improved  opportunity  ! 

While  the  French  warriors  on  their  way  to  Rheims  had  about  concluded  t-o 
gi\e  up  attacking  the  castle  at  Troyes  because  it  was  so  heavily  garrisoned,  Joan  of 
Arc  entered  the  room  and  told  them  they  would  be  inside  the  castle  in  three  days. 

"We  would  willingly  wait  six  days,"  said  one  of  the  leaders. 

"Six!"  she  cried  out;  "you  shall  be  in  it  to-morrow."  And,  under  her 
leadership,  on  the  morrow  they  entered.  Though  Joan  afterwards  suffered 
martyrdom  at  the  stake,  her  glorious  deeds  will  live  in  the  grateful  remem- 
brance of  the  descendants  of  those  who  so  cruelly  executed  her.  On  a  smaller 
scale  every  man  has  garrisons  to  subdue  and  obstacles  to  level,  and  every  wife 
may  be  an  inspired  Joan  of  Arc  to  her  hu.sband.  So  that  whatever  be  his  suc- 
cesses he  will  always  bless  her  name  for  the  helpfulness  she  gave  him. 

What  a  noble,  wifely  ambition,  the  determination,  God  helping,  to  accom- 
pany her  companion  across  the  stormy  sea  of  this  life  and  together  gain  the 
wharf  of  the  Celestial  City  !  Coax  him  along  with  you  !  You  cannot  drive  him 
there.     You  cannot  nag  him  there  ;  but  you  can  coax  him  there.     That  is  God's 


EXECUTION   OF   JOAN    OF   ARC. 


162  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFH. 

plan.  He  coaxes  us  all  the  way — coaxes  us  out  of  our  sins,  coaxes  us  to  accept 
pardon,  coaxes  us  to  heaven.  If  we  reach  that  blessed  place  it  will  be  through  a 
prolonged  and  divine  coaxing.  By  the  same  process  take  your  companion,  and 
then  you  will  get  there  as  well,  and  all  your  household.  Do  just  the  opposite  to 
your  neighbor.  Her  wifely  ambition  is  all  for  this  world,  and  a  disappointed  and 
vexed  and  unhappy  creature  she  will  be  all  the  way.  Her  residence  may  be  better 
than  yours  for  the  few  years  of  earthly  stay,  but  she  will  move  out  of  it  as  to  her 
body  into  a  house  about  five  and  a  half  feet  long  and  about  three  feet  wide  and 
two  feet  high,  and  concerning  her  soul's  destiny  you  can  make  your  own  prognos- 
tication. Her  husband  and  her  sons  and  daughters,  who  all,  like  her,  live  for 
this  world,  will  have  about  the  same  destiny  for  the  bod}-  and  the  soul.  You 
having  had  a  sanctified  and  divinely  ennobled  wifely  ambition,  will  pass  up  into 
palaces,  and  what  becomes  of  your  body  is  of  no  importance,  for  it  is  only  a 
scaffolding,  pulled  down  now  that  your  temple  is  done.  You  will  stand  in  the 
everlasting  rest  and  see  your  husband  come  in,  and  see  your  children  come  in,  if 
they  have  not  preceded  you.  Glorified  Christian  wife  !  Pick  up  any  crown  3'ou 
choose  from  off  the  King's  footstool  and  wear  it ;  it  was  promised  you  long  ago, 
and  with  it  cover  up  all  the  scars  of  your  earthly  conflict. 

FAITHFUL  WIVES'    REWARD. 

Sixteen  miles  from  St.  Petersburg,  Russia,  was  one  of  the  royal  palaces,  and 
there  one  night  Catharine,  the  Empress,  entertained  Prince  Henry.  It  was  severe 
winter  and  deep  snow,  and  the  Empress  and  the  Prince  rode  in  a  magnificence  of 
sleigh  and  robe  and  canopy  never  surpassed,  followed  b}'  2000  sleighs  laden  with 
the  first  people  of  Russia,  the  wdiole  length  cf  the  distance  illuminated  by  lamps 
and  dazzling  temples  built  for  that  one  night,  and  imitations  of  mosques  and 
Egyptian  pyramids  ;  and  people  of  all  nations  in  all  styles  of  costume  standing  on 
platforms  along  the  way  and  watching  the  blaze  of  the  pyrotechnics.  At  the 
palace  the  luxuries  of  kingdoms  were  gathered  and  spread,  and  at  the  tables  the 
guests  had  but  to  touch  the  centre  of  a  plate,  and  by  magical  machinery  it  dropped 
and  another  plate  came  up  loaded  with  still  richer  viands.  lUit  all  that  scene  of 
the  long  ago  shall  be  eclipsed  by  the  greater  splendors  that  will  be  gathered  at  the 
banquet  made  by  the  heavenly  King  for  those  consecrated  women  who  came  in 
out  of  the  winter  and  snowy  chill  of  Iheir  earthly  existence  into  the  warm  and 
illumined  ])alaces  of  heaven.  With  the  Knig  Himself  and  all  the  potentates, 
yourself  robed  and  crowned,  you  will  sit  at  a  tal)le  compared  with  which  all  the 
feasts  at  Kenilworth  and  St.  Cloud  and  the  Alhambra  were  a  beggar's  crust.  And 
the  ])latter  of  one  royal  .satisfaction  touched  at  the  centre  shall  disappear,  only  tc 
make  room  for  a  gracious  viand,  and  the  golden  plate  of  one  royal  satisfaction, 
touched  at  the  centre,  shall  disappear,  only  to  make  room  for  the  coming  of  some 
richer  and  grander  regalement. 


WHAT  CAN   MAKE  WOMEN   HAPPY,  AND  WHAT  OFTEN   MAKES  THEM   MISERABLE. 

KCENTlyY  the  editor  of  a  Boston  newspaper  wrote  asking  me  the 
terse  question:  "  What  is  the  road  to  happiness?"  and  "  Ought 
happiness  be  the  chief  aim  of  life  ?"  My  answer  was:  "  The 
road  to  happiness  is  the  continuous  effort  to  make  others  happy. 
The  chief  aim  of  life  ought  to  be  usefulness,  not  happiness; 
;but  happiness  always  follows  usefulness.  '  She  that  liveth  in 
pleasure  is  dead  while  she  liveth.'  " 
My  readers,  you  all  want  to  be  happ}'.  Yovi  have  had  a  great  many  recipes 
by  which  it  is  propc'Sed  to  give  3^ou  satisfaction — solid  satisfaction.  At  times  j-ou 
feel  a  thorough  unrest.  You  know  as  well  as  older  people  what  it  is  to  be 
depressed.  As  dark  shadows  sometimes  fall  upon  the  geography  of  the  school  girl 
as  on  the  page  of  the  spectacled  philosopher.  I  have  seen  as  cloudy  da)'S  in 
May  as  in  November.  There  are  no  deeper  sighs  breathed  by  the  grandmother 
than  by  the  granddaughter.  I  correct  the  popular  impression  that  people  are 
happier  in  childhood  and  youth  than  they  ever  will  be  again.  If  we  live  aright, 
the  older  the  happier.  The  happiest  woman  that  I  ever  knew  was  a  Christian 
octogenarian;  her  hair  white  as  white  could  be;  the  sunlight  of  heaven  late  in  the 
afternoon  gilding  the  peaks  of  snow.  I  have  to  say  to  a  great  man}'  of  the  young 
people  that  the  most  miserable  time  3'ou  are  ever  to  have  is  just  now.  As  j'ou 
advance  in  life,  as  you  come  out  into  the  world  and  have  5^our  head  and  heart  all 
full  of  good,  honest,  practical  Christian  work,  then  3'ou  will  know  wliat  it  is  to 
begin  to  be  happy.  There  are  those  who  would  have  us  believe  that  life  is 
chasing  thistledown  and  grasping  bubbles.  We  have  not  found  it  so.  To  many 
of  us  it  has  been  discovering  diamonds  larger  than  the  Kohinoor,  and  I  think  that 
our  joy  will  continue  to  increase  until  nothing  short  of  the  everlasting  jubilee  of 
heaven  will  be  able  to  express  it. 

Horatio  Greenough,  at  the  close  of  the  hardest  life  a  man  ever  lives — the  life 
of  an  American  artist — wrote:  "  I  don't  want  to  leave  this  world  until  I  give  some 
sign  that,  born  by  the  grace  of  God  in  this  land,  I  have  found  life  to  be  a  very 
cheerful  thing,  and  not  the  daik  and  bitter  thing  with  which  my  early  prospects 
were  clouded." 

Albert  Barnes,  the  good  Christian,  known  the  world  over,  stood  in  his  pulpit 
in  Philadelphia,  at  seventy  or  eighty  years  of  age,  and  said:  "  This  world  is  so 
very  attractive  to  me,  I  am  very  sorry  I  shall  have  to  leave  it." 

(163) 


164 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


I  know  that  Solomon  said  some  very  dolorous  things  about  this  world,  and 
three  times  declared:  ' '  Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity. ' '  I  suppose  it  was  a  refer- 
ence to  those  times  in  liis  career  when  his  700  wives  almost  pestered  the  life  out  of 


KAKl.V    1  Rut  1.1. 1„S.-    l.liil.l',  MiseiIIi;K  AND  HIS  THACIIICK  . --Z^>'  //.   Ili-lliiuk. 

him.  But  I  would  rather  turn  to  the  description  he  gave  after  his  conversion,  when 
he  says  in  another  place:  "  Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  all  her  paths 
are  peace." 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


165 


It  is  reasonable  to  expect  it  will  be  so.     The  longer  the  fruit  hangs  on  the 
tree,  the  riper  and  more  mellow  it  ought  to  grow.     You  plant  one  grain  of  com 


NAPOI.EON    ANNOUNCING    TO   JOSEPHTNE    HER    DIVORCEMENT. 

and  it  will  send  up  a  stalk  with  two  ears,  each  having  950  grains,  so  that  one 
grain  planted  will  produce  1900  grains.     And  ought  not  the  implantation  of  a  grain 


1 66  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

of  Christian  principle  in  a  youthful  soul  develop  into  a  large  crop  of  gladness  on 
^arth  and  to  a  harvest  of  eternal  joy  in  heaven  ?  Hear  me,  then,  while  I  dis- 
course upon  some  of  the  mistakes  which  young  people  make  in  regard  to  happi- 
ness, and  point  out  to  the  young  women  what  I  consider  to  be  the  source  of 
complete  satisfaction. 

LITTLE   HAPPINESS   IN   SOCIAL  POSITION. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  I  advise  you  not  to  build  your  happiness  upon  mere 
social  position.  Persons  at  your  age,  looking  off  upon  life,  are  apt  to  think  that 
if,  by  some  stroke  of  what  is  called  good  luck,  you  could  arrive  in  an  elevated  and 
affluent  position,  a  little  higher  than  that  in  which  God  has  called  you  to  live,  you 
would  be  completely  happy.  Infinite  mistake  !  The  palace  floor  of  Ahasuerus  is 
red  with  the  blood  of  Vashti's  broken  heart.  There  have  been  no  more  scalding 
tears  wept  than  those  which  coursed  the  cheeks  of  Josephine.  If  the  sob  of 
unhappy  womanhood  in  the  great  cities  could  break  through  the  tapestried  wall, 
that  sob  would  come  along  your  streets  to-day  like  the  simoon  of  the  desert. 
Sometimes  I  have  heard  in  the  rustling  of  the  robes  on  the  city  pavement  the  hiss 
of  the  adders  that  followed  in  the  wake.  You  have  come  out  from  your  home, 
and  3'ou  have  looked  up  at  the  great  house,  and  covet  a  life  under  those  arches, 
when,  perhaps,  at  that  very  moment,  within  that  house,  there  niaj-  have  been  the 
wringing  of  hands,  the  start  of  horror  and  the  very  agony  of  hell.  I  knew  such 
a  one.  Her  father's  house  was  plain,  most  of  the  people  who  came  there  were 
plain;  but,  by  a  change  in  fortune  such  as  sometimes  comes,  a  hand  had  been 
offered  that  led  her  into  a  brilliant  sphere.  All  the  neighbors  congratulated  her 
upon  her  grand  prospects;  but  what  an  exchange  !  On  her  side  it  was  a  heart  full 
of  generous  impulse  and  affection.  On  his  side  it  was  a  soul  dry  and  withered  as 
t!i2  stubble  of  the  field.  On'  her  side  it  was  a  father's  house,  where  God  was 
honored  and  the  Sabbath  light  flooded  the  rooms  with  the  very  mirth  of  heaven. 
On  his  side  it  was  a  gorgeous  residence,  and  the  coming  of  mighty  men  to  be 
entertained  there,  but  within  it  were  revelry  and  godlessness.  Hardly  had  the 
orange  blossoms  of  the  marriage  feast  lost  their  fragrance,  than  the  night  of  dis- 
content began  to  cast  here  and  there  its  shadows.  Cruelties  and  unkindnesses 
changed  all  those  splendid  trappings  into  a  hollow  mockery.  The  platters  of  solid 
silver,  the  casket  of  pure  gold,  the  head-dress  of  gleaming  diamonds,  were  there; 
but  no  God,  no  peace,  no  kind  words,  no  Christian  sympathy.  The  festal  music 
that  broke  on  the  captive's  ear  turned  out  to  be  a  dirge,  and  the  wreath  in  the 
plush  was  a  reptile  coil,  and  the  upholstery  that  swayed  in  the  wind  was  the  wing 
of  a  destroying  angel,  and  the  bead-drops  on  the  pitcher  were  the  sweat  of  ever- 
lasting despair.  Oh,  how  many  rivalries  and  unha])pincsses  among  those  who 
seek  in  social  life  their  chief  happiness  !     It  matters  not  how  fine  you  have  things; 


A  BROKEN  HEART  IN  A  GiEDED  PAEACK. — From  a  Paiiitiiig  by  L.  stocks. 


(167) 


1 68  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

there  are  other  people  who  have  it  finer.  Taking  out  your  watch  to  tell  the  hour 
of  the  day,  some  one  will  correct  your  timepiece  by  pulling  out  a  watch  more 
riclil}'  chased  and  jeweled.  Ride  in  a  carriage  that  cost  you  $800,  and  before 
you  get  around  the  park  you  will  meet  with  one  that  cost  $2000.  Have  on  3'our 
wall  a  picture  by  Copley,  and  before  night  3'ou  will  hear  of  some  one  who  has  a 
picture  fresh  from  the  studio  of  Church  or  Bierstadt. 

All  that  this  world  can  do  for  you  in  silver,  in  gold,  in  Axminster  plush,  in 
Gobelin  tapestry,  in  wide  halls,  in  lordly  acquaintanceship,  will  not  give  you  the 
ten  thousandth  part  of  a  grain  of  solid  satisfaction.  The  English  lord,  moving  in 
the  ver}^  highest  sphere,  was  one  day  found  seated  with  his  chin  on  his  hand  and 
his  elbow  on  the  window  sill,  looking  out  and  saying:  ' '  Oh,  I  wish  I  could  exchange 
places  with  that  dog  ! ' ' 

Mere  social  position  will  never  give  happiness  to  a  woman's  soul.     I  have 

had  wide  and  continuous  observation,  and  I  tell  the  young  women  that  they  who 

build  on  mere  social  position  their  soul's  immortal  happiness  are  building  on  the 

sand. 

USEFULNESS  IN   HOME  CIRCLES. 

f  Suppose  that  a  young  woman  expends  the  brightness  of  her  early  life  in  this 
unsatisfactory  struggle  and  omits'  the  present  opportunity  of  usefulness  in  the 
home  circle;  what  a  mistake  ! 

So  surely  as  the  years  roll  around,  that  home  in  which  j-ou  now  dwell  will 
become  extinct.  The  parents  will  be  gone,  the  property  will  be  turned  over  into 
other  possession,  you  j'ourself  will  be  in  other  relationships,  and  that  home  which, 
only  a  year  ago,  was  full  of  congratulation,  will  be  extinguished.  When  that 
period  comes  you  will  look  back  to  see  what  you  did  or  what  you  neglected  to  do 
in  the  way  of  making  home  happy.  If  you  did  not  smooth  the  path  of  your 
parents  toward  the  tomb;  if  you  did  not  make  their  last  days  bright  and  happy; 
if  you  allowed  your  younger  brother  to  go  out  into  the  world  unhallowed  by 
Christian  and  sisterly  influences;  if  you  allowed  the  younger  sisters  of  your 
family  to  come  up  without  feeling  that  there  had  been  a  Christian  example  set 
them  on  your  part,  there  wnll  be  nothing  but  bitterness  of  lamentation.  That 
bitterness  will  be  increased  by  all  the  surroundings  of  that  home;  by  every  chair, 
by  every  picture,  by  the  old-time  mantel  ornaments,  by  ever>'thing  you  can  think 
of  as  connected  with  that  home.  All  these  things  will  rouse  up  agonizing 
memories.  Young  women,  have  you  anything  to  do  in  the  way  of  making  your 
father's  home  happy  ?  Now  is  the  time  to  attend  to  it,  or  leave  it  forever  undone. 
Time  is  flying  very  quickly  away.  I  suppose  you  notice  the  wrinkles  are  gather- 
ing and  accumulating  on  those  kindly  faces  that  have  so  long  looked  upon  you; 
there  is  frost  in  the  locks;  the  foot  is  not  as  firm  in  its  step  as  it  used  to  be;  and 
they  will  soon  be  gone.     The  heaviest  clod  that  ever  falls  on  a  parent's  cofiin-lid 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  1,1  FE, 


i6g 


is  the  memory  of  an  ungrateful  daughter.  Oh,  make  their  last  days  bright  and 
beautiful.  Do  not  act  as  though  they  were  in  the  way.  Ask  their  counsel,  seek 
their  prayers,  and,  after  long  years  have  passed,  and  you  go  out  to  see  the  grave 
where  they  sleep,  you  will  find  growing  all  over  the  mound  something  lovelier  than 
cypress,  something  sweeter  than  the  rose,  something  chaster  than  the  lily — the 
bright  and  beautiful  memories  of  filial  kindness  performed  ere  the  dying  hand 
dropped  on  you  a  benediction,  and  you  closed  the  lids  over  the  weary  eyes  of  the 
wornout  pilgrim.     Better  that,  in  the  hour  of  your  birth,  you  had  been  struck 


THP:    0I.D    HOMESTEAD. 


with  orphanage,  and  that  you  had  been  handed  over  into  the  cold  arms  of  the 
world,  rather  than  that  you  should  have  been  brought  up  under  a  father's  care 
and  a  mother's  tenderness  at  last  to  scoff  at  their  example  and  deride  their 
influence;  and  on  the  day  when  you  followed  them  in  long  procession  to  the  tomb 
to  find  that  you  are  followed  by  a  still  larger  procession  of  unfilial  deeds  done  and 
wrong  words  uttered.  The  one  procession  will  leave  its  burden  in  the  tomb  and 
disband;  but  that  longer  procession  of  ghastly  memories  will  forever  march  and 
forever  wail.     Oh,  it  is  a  good  time  for  a  young  woman  when  she  is  in  her  father's 


lyo 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


house.  How  careful  they  are  of  her  welfare.  How  watchful  those  parents  of  all 
her  interests.  Seated  at  the  morning  repast,  father  at  one  end  of  the  table,  mother 
at  the  other  and  children  on  either  side  and  between,  but  the  years  will  roll  on 
and  great  changes  will  be  effected,  and  one  will  be  missed  from  one  end  of  the 
table  and  another  will  be  missed  from  the  other  end  of  the  table.  God  pity  that 
}'oung  woman's  soul  who,  in  that  dark  hour,  has  nothing  but  regretful  recol- 
lections. 


run    KMPTY   PLACE. 
"  The  Lord  gave,  and  the  Lord  hath  taken  away;  blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord." 


PERSONAL  CHARMS  OF  WOMEN. 


I  go  further  and  advise  you  not  to  depend  for  enjoyment  upon  mere  personal 
attractions.     It  would  be  sheer  hypocrisy, because  we  may  not  have  it  ourselves,  to 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


171 


despise,  or  affect  to  despise,  beauty  in  others.  When  God  gives  it  He  gives  it  as  a 
blessing  and  as  a  means  of  usefuhiess.  The  Bible  sets  before  us  the  portraits  of 
Sarah  and  Rebecca,  and  Abishag,  Absalom's  sister,  and  Job's  daughters,   and 


A  BIRTHDAY  svRFRiSE. — FroJii  u  Painting  bv  W.  Hafcnnann. 

says:  "  They  were  fair  to  look  upon."  By  out-door  exercise,  and  skillful  arrange- 
ment of  apparel,  let  women  make  themselves  attractive.  The  sloven  has  only 
one  mission,  and  that  to  excite  our  loathing  and  disgust.     But  alas  !  for  those 


172  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

who  depend  upon  personal  charms  for  their  happiness.  Beauty  is  such  a  subtle 
thing,  it  does  not  seem  to  depend  upon  facial  proportions,  or  upon  the  sparkle  of 
the  eye,  or  upon  the  flush  of  the  cheek.  You  sometimes  find  it  among  irregular 
features.  It  is  the  soul  shining  through  the  face  that  makes  one  beautiful.  But 
alas  !  for  those  who  depend  upon  mere  personal  charms.  They  will  come  to  dis- 
appointment and  to  a  great  fret.  There  are  so  many  different  opinions  about  what 
are  personal  charms;  and  then  sickness,  and  trouble,  and  age,  do  make  such 
ravages.  The  poorest  god  that  a  woman  ever  worships  is  her  own  face.  The 
saddest  sight  in  all  the  world  is  a  woman  who  has  built  everything  on  good  looks, 
when  the  charms  begin  to  vanish.  Oh,  how  they  try  to  cover  the  wrinkles  and 
hide  the  ravages  of  time  !  When  Time,  with  iron-shod  feet,  steps  on  a  face,  the 
hoof-marks  remain,  and  you  cannot  hide  them.  It  is  silly  to  try  to  hide  them. 
I  think  the  most  repulsive  fool  in  all  the  world  is  an  old  fool  ! 

Why,  my  friends,  should  you  be  ashamed  to  be  getting  old  ?  It  is  a  sign — it 
is  prima  facie  evidence  that  you  have  behaved  tolerably  well  or  you  would  not 
have  lived  to  this  time.  The  grandest  thing,  I  think,  is  eternity,  and  that  is 
made  up  of  countless  years.  When  the  Bible  would  set  forth  the  attractiveness 
of  Jesus  Christ,  it  says:  "His  hair  was  white  as  snow."  But  when  the  color 
goes  from  the  cheek,  and  the  lustre  from  the  eye,  and  the  spring  from  the  step, 
and  the  gracefulness  from  the  gait,  alas  !  for  those  who  have  built  their  time  and 
their  eternity  upon  good  looks.  But  all  the  passage  of  years  cannot  take  out  of 
one's  face  benignity,  and  kindness,  and  compassion,  and  faith.  Culture  your 
heart  and  you  culture  your  face.  The  brightest  glory  that  ever  beamed  from  a 
woman's  face  is  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  the  last  war  200  wounded  sol- 
diers came  to  Philadelphia  one  night,  and  came  unheralded,  and  they  had  to 
extemporize  a  hospital  for  them,  and  the  Christian  women  of  my  church  and 
of  other  churches  went  out  that  night  to  take  care  of  the  poor  wounded  fellows. 
That  night  I  saw  a  Christian  woman  go  through  the  wards  of  the  hospital,  her 
sleeves  rolled  up,  ready  for  hard  work,  her  hair  disheveled  in  the  excitement  of 
the  hour.  Her  face  was  plain,  very  plain;  but  after  the  wounds  were  washed  and 
the  new  bandages  were  put  round  the  splintered  limbs,  and  the  exhausted  boy  fell 
off  into  his  first  pleasant  sleep,  she  put  her  hand  on  his  brow,  and  he  started  in 
his  dream  and  said:   "  Oh,  I  thought  an  angel  touched  me  !" 

There  may  have  been  no  classic  elegance  in  the  features  of  Mrs.  Harris,  who 
came  into  the  hospital  after  the  "  seven  days  "  awful  fight,  as  she  sat  down  by  a 
wounded  drummer  boy  and  heard  him  soliloquize:  "  A  ball  through  my  body, 
and  my  poor  mother  will  never  again  see  her  boy.  What  a  pity  it  is  !"  And 
she  leaned  over  him  and  said:  "Shall  I  be  your  mother  and  comfort  you?" 
And  he  looked  up  and  said:  "Yes;  I'll  try  to  think  she's  here.  Please  to  write 
a  long  letter  to  her  and  tell  her  all  about  it,  and  send  her  a  lock  of  my  hair  and 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  173 

comfort  her.  But  I  would  like  to  have  you  to  tell  her  how  much  I  suffered — yes, 
I  would  like  you  to  do  that,  for  she  would  feel  so  for  me.  Hold  m}-  hand  while 
Idle." 

There  may  have  been  no  classic  elegance  in  her  features,  but  all  the  hospitals 
of  Harrison's  Landing  and  Fortress  Monroe  would  have  agreed  that  she  was  beau- 
tiful; and  if  any  rough  man  in  all  that  ward  had  insulted  her,  some  wounded  sol- 
dier would  have  leaped  from  his  couch,  on  his  best  foot,  and  struck  him  dead  with 
a  crutch. 

I  charge  you  not  to  depend  for  happiness  upon  the  discipleship  of  worldliness. 
I  have  seen  men  as  vain  of  their  old-fashioned  and  their  eccentric  hat  as  your 
brainless  fop  is  proud  of  his  dangling  fooleries.  Fashion  sometimes  makes  a 
reasonable  demand  of  us,  and  then  we  ought  to  yield  to  it.  The  daisies  of  the  field 
have  their  fashion  of  color  and  leaf,  the  honeysuckles  have  their  fashion  of  ear- 
prop,  and  the  snow-flakes  flung  out  of  the  winter  heavens  have  their  fashion  of 
exquisiteness.  After  the  summer  shower  the  sky  weds  the  earth  with  a  ring  of 
rainbow.  And  I  do  not  think  we  have  a  right  to  despise  the  elegancies  and  fash- 
ions of  this  world,  especially  if  they  make  reasonable  demands  upon  us;  but  the 
discipleship  and  worship  of  fashion  is  death  to  the  bod}^,  and  death  to  the  soul.  I 
am  glad  the  world  is  improving.  Look  at  the  fashion  plates  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries,  and  you  will  find  that  the  world  is  not  so  extravagant 
and  extraordinary  now  as  it  was  then,  and  all  the  marvelous  things  that  the  grand- 
daughter will  do  will  never  equal  that  done  by  the  grandmother.  Go  still  farther 
back,  to  the  Bible  times,  and  you  will  find  that  in  those  times  fashion  wielded  a 
more  terrible  and  horrible  sceptre.  You  have  only  to  turn  to  the  third  chapter  of 
Isaiah  to  read:  "  Because  the  daughters  of  Zion  are  haughty  and  walk  with 
stretched- forth  necks  and  wanton  eyes,  walking  and  mincing  as  they  go,  and  mak- 
ing a  tinkling  with  their  feet:  in  that  day  the  Lord  will  take  away  the  bravery  of 
their  tinkling  ornaments  about  their  feet,  and  their  cauls,  and  their  round  tires  like 
the  moon;  the  chains,  and  the  bracelets,  and  the  mufflers,  the  bonnets,  and  the 
headbands,  and  the  tablets,  and  the  ear-rings,  the  rings,  and  the  nose-jewels,  the 
changeable  suits  of  apparel,  and  the  mantles,  and  the  wimples,  and  the  crisping 
pins,  the  glasses,  and  the  fine  linen,  and  the  hoods,  and  the  veils." 

Only  think  of  a  woman  having  all  that  on  !  I  am  glad  the  world  is  getting 
better  and  that  fashion  which  has  dominated  in  the  world  so  ruinously  in  other 
days  has  for  a  little  time,  for  a  little  degree  at  any  rate,  relaxed  its  energies.  All 
the  splendors  and  extravaganza  of  this  world  dyed  into  3'-our  robe  and  flung  over 
your  shoulder  cannot  wrap  peace  around  your  heart  for  a  single  moment.  The 
gayest  wardrobe  will  utter  no  voice  of  condolence  in  the  day  of  trouble  and  dark- 
ness. That  woman  is  grandly  dressed,  and  only  she,  who  is  wrapped  in  the  robe 
of  a  Saviour's  righteousness.     The  home  may  be  very  humble,  the  hat  may  be 


174 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 


very  plain,  the  frock  may  be  very  coarse;  but  the  halo  of  heaven  settles  in  the 
room  when  she  wears  it,  and  the  faintest  touch  of  the  resurrection  angel  will 
change  that  garment  into  raiment  exceeding  wliite,  so  as  no  fuller  on  earth  could 


1111';    SCKllUiS   DlKKICUl.TV. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I^IFE.  i75 

whiten  it.  I  come  to  you,  j^oung  women,  to-day  to  say  that  this  world  cannot 
make  you  happy.  I  know  it  is  a  bright  world,  with  glorious  sunshine,  and  golden 
rivers,  and  fire-worked  sunset,  and  bird  orchestra,  and  the  darkest  cave  has  its 
crystals,  and  the  wrathiest  wave  its  foam  wreath,  and  the  coldest  midnight  its 
flaming  aurora;  but  God  will  put  out  all  these  lights  with  the  blast  of  his  own 
nostrils,  and  the  glories  of  this  world  will  perish  in  the  final  conflagration. 

GOOD   NIGHT  TO  TEARS  AND   POVERTY. 

The  snow  was  ver>'  deep,  and  it  was  still  falling  rapidly  when,  in  the  first  year 
of  my  Christian  ministry,  I  hastened  to  see  a  young  woman  die.  It  was  a  very 
humble  home.  She  was  an  orphan;  her  father  had  been  shipwrecked  on  the  banks 
of  Newfoundland.  She  had  earned  her  own  living.  As  I  entered  the  room  I  saw 
nothing  attractive.  No  pictures,  no  tapestry,  not  even  a  cushioned  chair.  The 
snow  on  the  window  casement  was  not  whiter  than  the  cheek  of  that  dying  girl. 
It  was  a  face  never  to  be  forgotten.  Sweetness  and  majesty  of  soul  and  faith  in 
God  had  given  her  a  matchless  beauty,  and  the  sculptor  who  could  have  caught 
the  outlines  of  those  features  and  frozen  them  into  stone  would  have  made  himself 
immortal.  With  her  large  brown  eyes  she  looked  calmly  into  the  great  eternity. 
I  sat  down  by  her  bedside  and  said:  "  Now  tell  me  all  your  troubles,  and  sorrows, 
and  struggles,  and  doubts."  She  repHed:  "  I  have  no  doubts  or  struggles.  It 
is  all  plain  to  me.  Jesus  has  smoothed  the  way  for  my  feet.  I  wish  when  you  go 
to  your  pulpit  next  Sunday,  j^ou  would  tell  the  young  people  that  religion  will 
make  them  happy.  'O  death,  where  is  thy  sting?'  Mr.  Talmage,  I  wonder  if 
this  is  not  the  bliss  of  dying  ?"  I  said:  "  Yes,  I  think  it  must  be."  I  lingered 
around  the  couch.  The  sun  was  setting,  and  her  sister  lighted  a  candle.  She 
lighted  the  candle  for  me.  The  dying  girl,  the  dawn  of  heaven  in  her  face,  needed 
no  candle.  I  rose  to  go,  and  she  said:  "  I  thank  you  for  coming.  Good  night ! 
When  we  meet  again  it  will  be  in  heaven — in  heaven  !  Good  night !  good 
night  !" 

For  her  it  was  good  night  to  tears,  goodnight  to  poverty,  good  night  to  death; 
but  when  the  sun  rose  again  it  was  good  morning.  The  light  of  another  day  had 
burst  in  upon  her  soul.  Good  morning  !  The  angels  were  singing  her  welcome 
home,  and  the  hand  of  Christ  was  putting  upon  her  brow  a  garland.  Good  morn- 
ing !  Her  sun  rising.  Her  palm  weaving.  Her  spirit  exulting  before  the  throne 
of  God.  Good  morning  !  Good  morning  !  The  white  lily  of  poor  Margaret's 
cheek  had  blushed  into  the  rose  of  health  immortal,  and  the  snows  through  which 
we  carried  her  to  the  country-  graveyard  were  symbols  of  that  robe  which  she 
wears,  so  white  that  no  fuller  on  earth  could  whiten  it.  My  sister,  my  daughter, 
may  your  last  end  be  like  hers  ! 


(Btixntim^ilyitt* 


THE  BLESSED   INFLUENCE  OF   DEVOUT  OLD  AGE. 

N  a  love  letter  which  Paul,  the  old  minister,  wrote  to  Tinioth}-,  the 
3'oung  minister,  the  famil}-  record  is  brought  out.     Paul  practically 
sa^-s:   "  Timothy,  what  a  good  grandmother  you  had.     You  ought 
to  be  better  than  most  folks,  because  not  only  was  your  mother 
good,  but  your  grandmother.     Two  preceding  generations  of  piety 
ought  to  give  you  a  mighty  push  in  the  right  direction."     The 
fact  was  that  Timothy  needed  encouragement.     He  was  in  poor 
health,  having  a  weak  .stomach,  and  was  dyspeptic,  and  Paul  prescribed 
for  him  a  tonic,  "  a  little  wine  for  thy  stomach's  sake  " — not  much  wine, 
but  a  little  wine,  and  only  as  medicine.     And  if  the  wine  then  had  been, 
as  much  adulterated  with  logwood  and  strychnine  as  our  modern  wines, 
'y  i        he  would  not  have  prescribed  any. 
'''  But  Timothy,  not  strong  phj'sically,  is  encouraged  spiritually  by  the 

recital  of  grandmotherly  excellence,  Paul  hinting  to  him,  as  I  hint  to 
you,  that  God  sometimes  gathers  up  as  in  a  reservoir  away  back  of  the 
active  generations  of  to-day  a  godly  influence,  and  then  in  response  to 
praj'Cr  lets  down  the  power  upon  children  and  grandchildren  and  great- 
grandchildren. The  world  is  woefully  in  want  of  a  table  of  statistics  in  regard  to 
what  is  the  protractedness  and  immensity  of  influence  of  one  good  woman  in  the 
church  and  world.  We  have  accounts  of  how  much  evil  has  been  wrought  by 
Margaret,  the  mother  of  criminals,  who  lived  near  loo  years  ago,  and  of  how  many 
hundreds  of  criminals  her  descendants  furnished  for  the  penitentiaries  and  the 
gallows,  and  how  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  they  cost  this  country  in 
their  arraignment  and  pri.son  support,  as  well  as  in  the  property  they  burglarized 
or  destroyed.  But  will  not  some  one  come  out  with  brain  comprehensive  enough 
and  heart  warm  enough  and  pen  keen  enough  to  give  us  the  facts  in  regard  to 
some  good  woman  of  loo  years  ago,  and  let  us  know  how  many  Christian  men  and 
women  and  reformers  and  useful  people  have  been  found  among  her  descendants, 
and  how  many  asylums  and  colleges  and  churches  they  built,  and  how  many 
millions  of  dollars  they  contributed  for  humanitarian  and  Christian  purposes  ? 

The  good  women  whose  tombstones  were  planted  in   the  eighteenth  century 
are  more  alive  for  good  in  the  nineteenth  century  than  they  were  before,  as  the 

(176) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


177 


good  women  of  this  nineteenth  century  will  be  more  alive  for  good  in  the  twentieth 
centur}-  than  now.  Mark  you,  I  have  no  idea  that  the  grandmothers  were  any 
better  than  their  grandaughters.     You  cannot  get  very  old  people  to  talk  much 


GRANDMOTHER. 


about  how  things  were  when  they  were  boys  and  girls.     They  have  a  reticence 

and  a  non-committalism  which  makes  me  think  they  feel  themselves  to  be  the 

custodians  of  the  reputations  of  their  early  comrades.     While  our  dear  old  folks 
12 


178  THE  PATHWAY  OF  IvlFE. 

are  rehearsing  the  follies  of  the  present,  if  you  put  them  on  the  witness  stand  and 
cross-examine  them  as  to  how  things  were  seventy  years  ago  the  silence  becomes 
oppressive. 


XAi,K.iNG  ovKR  OLD  TiMUS.—Ly  Ed.  Schnlz  Bricscn. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  IJFE. 


179 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY. 

A  celebrated  Frenchman  by  the  name  of  Vohiey,  visited  this  countr>'  in  1796, 
and  he  says  of  woman's  diet  in  those  times:     "If  a  premium  was  offered  for  a 
regimen  most  destructive  to  health,  none  could  be  devised  more  efficacious  for 
these  ends  than  that  in  use  among  these  people."     That  eclipses  our  lobster  salad 
at  midnight.    Everybody 
talks  about  the  dissipa- 
tion of    modern    society 
and  how  womanly  health 
goes  down  under  it,  but 
it  was  worse  a  hundred 
years  ago,  for  the  chap- 
lain   of   a    French   regi- 
ment in  our  Revolution- 
ary War  wrote  in  1782, 
in  his  book  of  American 
women,  saying:    "They 
are  tall  and  well  propor- 
tioned, their  features  are 
generally   regular,    their 
complexions    are   gener- 
ally   fair    and     without 
color.     At  twenty  years 
of  age  the  women  have 
no  longer   the  freshness 
of  youth.     At  thirty  or 
forty  they  are  decrepit. ' ' 
In  18 12  a  foreign  consul 
wrote   a    book   entitled, 
"A  Sketch  of  the  United 
States  at  the  Commence- 
ment    of     the     Present 
Century,"  and    he   says 
of  the  women  of  those 
times:    "  At  the  age  of  thirty  all  their  charms  have  disappeared."     One  glance  at 
the  portraits  of  the  women  a  hundred  years  ago  and  their  style  of  dress  makes  us 
wonder  how  they  ever  got  their  breath.     All  this  makes  me  think  that  the  express 
rail  train  is  no  more  an  improvement  on  the  old  canal  boat,  or  the  telegraph  no 
more  an  improvement  on  the  old-time  saddle-bags,  than  the  women  of  our  day 
are  an  improvement  on  the  women  of  the  last  century. 


VISITING   THK    SICK    AND   DtSTITUTK. 


i8o  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

But  still,  notwithstanding  that  those  times  were  so  much  worse  than  ours, 
there  was  a  glorious  race  of  godly  women,  seventy  and  a  hundred  years  ago,  who 
held  the  world  back  from  sin  and  lifted  it  toward  virtue,  and  without  their  exalted 
and  sanctified  influence  before  this  the  last  good  influence  would  have  perished 
from  the  earth.  Indeed,  all  over  this  land  there  are  seated  to-day — not  so  much 
in  churches,  for  many  of  them  are  too  feeble  to  come — a  great  many  aged  grand- 
mothers. They  sometimes  fqel  that  the  world  has  gone  past  them,  and  they  have 
an  idea  that  they  are  of  little  account.  Their  heads  sometimes  get  aching  from  the 
racket  of  the  grandchildren  down-stairs  or  in  the  next  room.  They  steady  them- 
selves by  the  banisters  as  they  go  up  and  down.  When  they  get  a  cold  it  hangs  on 
to  them  longer  than  it  used  to.  They  cannot  bear  to  have  the  grandchildren 
punished  even  when  they  deserve  it,  and  have  so  relaxed  their  ideas  of  family 
discipline  that  they  would  spoil  all  the  3'oungsters  of  the  household  by  too  great 
leniency.  These  old  folks  are  the  resort  when  great  troubles  come,  and  there  is  a 
calming  and  soothing  power  in  the  touch  of  an  aged  hand  that  is  almost  super- 
natural. They  feel  that  they  are  almost  through  with  the  journey  of  life,  and 
read  the  old  Book  more  than  they  used  to,  hardly  knowing  which  most  they  enjoy, 
the  Old  Testament  or  the  New,  and  often  stop  and  dwell  tearfully  over  the  family 
record  half  way  betw^een.  We  hail  them  to-day,  whether  in  the  house  of  God  or 
at  the  homestead.  Blessed  is  that  household  that  has  in  it  a  Grandmother  Lois. 
Where  she  is,  angels  are  hovering  round  and  God  is  in  the  room.  May  her  last 
days  be  like  those  lovely  autumnal  days  that  we  call  Indian  Summer. 

I  never  knew  the  joy  of  having  a  grandmother;  that  is  the  disadvantage  of 
being  the  youngest  child  of  the  family.  The  elder  members  only  have  that  bene- 
diction. But  though  she  went  up  out  of  this  life  before  I  began  it,  I  have  heard 
of  her  faith  in  God,  that  brought  all  her  children  into  the  kingdom,  and  two  of 
them  into  the  ministry,  and  then  brought  all  her  grandchildren  into  the  kingdom, 
myself  the  last  and  least  worthy.  Is  it  not  time  that  you  and  I  do  two  things, 
swing  open  a  picture  gallery  of  the  wrinkled  faces  and  stooped  shoulders  of  the 
past,  and  call  down  from  their  heavenly  thrones  the  godly  grandmothers  to  give 
them  our  thanks,  and  then  persuade  the  mothers  of  to-day  that  they  are  living  for 
all  time,  and  that  against  the  sides  of  every  cradle  in  which  a  child  is  rocked  beat 
the  two  eternities  ? 

Do  not  let  the  grandmothers  any  longer  think  that  they  are  retired,  and  sit 
clear  back  out  of  sight  from  the  world,  feeling  that  they  have  no  relation  to  it. 
The  mothers  of  the  last  century  are  to-day  in  the  Senates,  the  Parliaments,  the 
palaces,  the  pulpits,  the  banking  houses,  the  professional  chairs,  the  pri.sons,  the 
almshouses,  the  company  of  midnight  brigands,  the  cellars,  the  ditches  of  this 
century.  You  have  been  thinking  about  the  importance  of  having  the  right  influ- 
ence upon  one  nursery-.     You  have  been  thinking  of  the  importance  of  getting  these 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  i8i 

two  little  feet  on  the  right  path.  You  have  been  thinking  of  your  child's  destiny 
for  the  next  eighty  years,  if  it  should  pass  on  to  be  an  octogenarian.  That  is 
well,  but  my  subject  sweeps  a  thousand  years,  a  million  years,  a  quadrillion  of 
years.  I  cannot  stop  at  one  cradle,  I  am  looking  at  the  cradles  that  reach  all 
round  the  world  and  across  all  time.  I  am  not  talking  of  Mother  Eunice,  I  am 
talking  of  Grandmother  Lois.  The  only  way  you  can  tell  the  force  of  a  current  is 
by  sailing  up-stream;  or  the  force  of  an  ocean  wave,  by  running  the  ship  against 
it.  Running  along  with  it  we  cannot  appreciate  the  force.  In  estimating  maternal 
influence  we  generally  run  along  with  it  down  the  stream  of  time,  and  so  we  don't 
understand  the  full  force.  Let  us  come  up  to  it  from  the  eternity  side,  after  it  has 
been  working  on  for  centuries,  and  see  all  the  good  it  has  done  and  all  the  evil  it 
has  accomplished,  multiplied  in  magnificent  or  appalling  compound  interest.  The 
difference  between  that  mother's  influence  now  and  the  influence  when  it  has  been 
multiplied  in  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives  is  the  difference  between  the  Missis- 
sippi River  way  up  at  the  top  of  the  continent,  starting  from  the  little  Lake  Itasca, 
seven  miles  long  and  one  wide,  and  its  mouth  at  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  where 
navies  might  ride.  Between  the  birth  of  that  river  and  its  burial  in  the  sea  the 
Missouri  pours  in,  and  the  Ohio  pours  in,  and  the  Arkansas  pours  in,  and  the  Red 
and  White  and  Yazoo  Rivers  pour  in,  and  all  the  States  and  Territories  between 
the  Alleghany  and  Rocky  Mountains  make  contribution.  Now,  in  order  to  test 
the  power  of  a  mother's  influence,  we  need  to  come  in  off  of  the  ocean  of  eternity 
and  sail  up  toward  the  one  cradle,  and  we  will  find  10,000  tributaries  of  influence 
pouring  in  and  pouring  down. 

ROLLING  ON  AND    FOREVER. 

But  it  is,  after  all,  one  great  river  of  power,  rolling  on  and  rolling  forever. 
Who  can  fathom  it  ?  Who  can  bridge  it  ?  Who  can  stop  it  ?  Had  not  mothers 
better  be  intensifying  their  prayers?  Had  they  not  better  be  elevating  their 
example  ?  Had  they  not  better  be  rousing  themselves  with  consideration  that  by 
their  faithfulness  or  neglect  they  are  starting  an  influence  which  will  be  stupendous 
after  the  last  mountain  of  earth  is  flat,  and  the  last  sea  has  been  dried  up,  and  the 
last  flake  of  the  ashes  of  a  consumed  world  shall  have  been  blown  away,  and  all  the 
telescopes  of  other  worlds,  directed  to  the  track  around  which  our  world  once 
swung,  shall  discover  not  so  much  as  a  cinder  of  the  burned-down  and  swept-off 
planet.  In  Ceylon  there  is  a  granite  column,  thirty-six  square  feet  in  size,  which 
is  thought  by  the  natives  to  decide  the  world's  continuance.  An  angel,  with  robe 
spun  from  zephyrs,  is  once  a  century  to  descend  and  sweep  the  hem  of  that  robe 
across  the  granite,  and  when,  by  that  attrition,  the  column  is  worn  away,  they  say 
time  will  end.  But  by  that  process  that  granite  column  would  be  worn  out  of 
existence  before  mother's  influence  will  begin  to  give  way. 


l82 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


''=^>. 


"-x/. 


Ft 


THK  GUIDING   ANGEL. 
o)n  the  Sciilplurc  by  L.  A.  Malcmptc. 


If  a  mother  tell  a  child  he  is 
not  good,  some  l^ugaboo  will  come 
and  catch  him,  the  fear  excited  may 
make  the  child  a  coward,  and  the 
fact  that  he  finds  that  there  is  no 
bugaboo  may  make  him  a  liar,  and 
the  echo  of  that  false  alarm  may  be 
heard  after  fifteen  generations  have 
been  born  and  have  expired.  If  a 
mother  promise  a  child  a  reward  for 
good  behavior  and  after  the  good 
behavior  forgets  to  give  the  reward, 
the  cheat  may  crop  out  in  some 
faithlessness  half  a  thousand  years 
further  on.  If  a  mother  culture  a 
child's  vanity  and  eulogize  his  curls 
and  extol  the  night-black  or  sky- 
blue  or  nut-brown  of  the  child's 
eyes,  and  call  out  in  his  presence 
the  admiration  of  spectators,  pride 
and  arrogance  may  be  prolonged 
after  half  a  dozen  family  records 
have  been  obliterated.  If  a  mother 
express  doubt  about  some  statement 
of  the  Holy  Bible  in  a  child's  pres- 
ence, long  after  the  gates  of  this 
historical  era  have  closed,  and  the 
gates  of  another  era  have  opened, 
the  result  may  be  seen  in  a  cham- 
pion blasphemer.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  a  mother  walking  with  a 
child  see  a  suffering  one  by  the  way- 
side and  says:  "  My  child,  give  that 
ten-cent  piece  to  that  lame  boy," 
the  result  may  be  seen  on  the  other 
side  of  the  following  century  in 
.some  George  Muller  building  a 
whole  village  of  orphanages.  If  a 
mother  sit  almost  every  evening  by 
the  trundle  bed  of  a  child  and  teach 


AN    ERRAND   OF   MERCY. 


(1S3) 


i84 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


it  lessons  of  a  Saviour's  example,  of  the  importance  of  truth  and  the  horror  of  a 
lie,  and  the  virtues  of  industr}-  and  kindness  and  sympathy  and  self-sacrifice, 
long  after  the  mother  has  gone  and  the  child  has  gone  and  the  lettering  on 
both  the  tombstones  shall  have  been  washed  out  by  the  storms  of  innumerable 
winters,  there  may  be  standing,  as  a  result  of  those  trundle  bed  lessons,  flaming 
evangels,  world-moving  reformers,  circulating  Summerfields,  weeping  Paysons, 
thundering  Whitefields,  emancipating  Washingtons. 


1'  A  K      \   1  .  I 


/•/  ('///    IIU 


/  itniliiiir  by  Artz. 


Good  or  bad  influence  may  skip  one  generation  or  two  generations,  but  it  will 
be  sure  to  land  in  the  third  or  fourth  generation,  just  as  the  Ten  Conunandments, 
speaking  of  the  visitation  of  God  on  families,  says  nothing  about  the  second 
generation,  but  entirely  skips  the  second  and  speaks  of  the  third  and  fourth  gene- 
rations: "  Visiting  the  iniquities  of  the  fathers  upon  the  third  and  fourth  genera- 
tions of  them  that  hate  mc."  Parental  influence,  right  and  wrong,  may  jump 
over  a  generation,  but  it  is  sure  to  appear  further  on.  Timothy's  ministry  was 
projected  by  his  grandmother,  Lois.  There  are  men  and  women,  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  the  Christian  Church,  who  are  such  as  a  result  of  the  consecration  of 


THE   CKI.ESTIAL  WEI.COME. 


(185) 


1 86 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


great-great-grandmothers.  Why,  who  do  you  think  the  Lord  is?  You  talk  as 
though  His  memory  was  weak.  He  can  no  easier  remember  a  prayer  five  minutes 
than  He  can  five  centuries. 


A  FAMILIAR  SIGHT   EXPLAINED. 

This  explains  what  we  often  see — some  man  or  woman  distinguished  for 
benevolence  when  the  father  and  mother  were  distinguished  for  penuriousness;  or 
you  see  some  young  man  or  woman  with  a  bad  father  and  a  hard  mother  come  out 

gloriously  for  Christ, 
and  make  the  Church 
sob,  and  shout  and 
sing  under  their  ex- 
hortations. We  stand 
in  corners  of  the  ves- 
try and  whisper  over 
the  matter  and  say: 
"  How  is  this,  such 
great  piet}-  in  sons 
and  daughters  of  such 
parental  worldliness 
and  sin  ?"  I  will  ex- 
plain it  to  you  if  you 
will  fetch  me  the  old 
family  Bible  contain- 
ing the  full  record. 
Let  some  septuagen- 
arian look  with  me 
clear  upon  the  page  of 
births  and  marriages, 
and  tell  me  who  that  woman  was  with  the  old-fashioned  name  of  Jemima,  or 
Betsy,  or  Mehitabel.  Ah,  there  she  is,  the  old  grandmother  or  great-grand- 
mother, who  had  enough  religion  to  saturate  a  centur>'. 

There  she  is,  the  dear  old  soul,  Grandmother  Lois.  In  our  beautiful  Green- 
wood cemetery,  there  is  the  resting-place  of  George  W.  Bethune,  once  a  minister 
of  Brooklyn  Heights,  his  name  never  spoken  among  intelligent  Americans  with- 
out suggesting  two  things — eloquence  and  evangelism.  In  the  same  tomb  sleeps 
his  grandmother,  Isabella  Graham,  who  was  the  chief  in.spiration  of  his  min- 
istry. You  are  not  surprised  at  the  poetry  and  pathos  and  pulpit  power  of  the 
grandson  when  you  read  of  the  faith  and  devotion  of  his  wonderful  ancestress. 
When  you  read  this  letter  in  which  she  poured  out  her  widowed  soul  in  longing 


^^^t 


^  The 


,,;.(3oori)>TQ'  ALL.-M 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  187 

for  a  son's  salvation,  you  will  not  wonder  that  succeeding  generations  have  been 
blessed: 

New  York,  May  20,  1791. — This  day  my  only  son  left  me  in  bitter  wringings  of  heart;  he 
is  again  launched  on  the  ocean — God's  ocean.  The  Lord  saved  him  from  shipwreck,  brought 
him  to  my  home,  and  allowed  me  once  more  to  indulge  my  affections  over  him.  He  has  been 
with  me  but  a  short  time,  and  ill  have  I  improved  it ;  he  is  gone  from  my  sight  and  my  heart 
bursts  with  tumultuous  grief.  Lord  have  mercy  on  the  widow's  son,  "the  only  son  of  his 
mother." 

I  ask  nothing  in  all  this  world  for  him  ;  I  repeat  my  petition,  save  his  soul  alive,  give  him 
salvation  from  sin.  It  is  not  the  danger  of  the  seas  that  distresses  me  ;  it  is  not  the  hardships 
he  must  undergo  ;  it  is  not  the  dread  of  never  seeing  him  more  in  this  world  ;  it  is  because  I 
cannot  discern  the  new  birth,  nor  its  fruit,  but  every  symptom  of  captivity  to  Satan,  the  world 
and  self-will.  This,  this  is  what  distresses  me  ;  and  in  connection  with  this  his  being  shut  out 
from  ordinances  at  a  distance  from  Christians  ;  shut  up  with  those  who  forget  God,  profane  His 
name,  and  break  His  Sabbaths ;  men  who  often  live  and  die  like  beasts,  yet  are  accountable 
creatures,  who  must  answer  for  every  moment  of  time  and  every  word,  thought  and  action.  O 
Lord,  many  wonders  hast  Thou  shown  me  ;  Thy  ways  of  dealing  with  me  and  mine  have  not 
been  common  ones  ;  add  this  wonder  to  the  rest.  Call,  convert,  regenerate  and  establish  a 
sailor  in  the  faith.  Lord,  all  things  are  possible  with  Thee;  glorify  Thy  Son,  and  extend 
His  kingdom  by  sea  and  land ;  take  the  prey  from  the  strong.  I  roll  him  over  upon 
Thee.  Many  friends  try  to  comfort  me.  Miserable  comforters  are  they  all.  Thou  art  the  God 
of  consolation  ;  only  confirm  to  me  Thy  precious  word,  on  which  Thou  causedst  me  to  hope  in 
the  day  when  Thou  saidst  to,  "Leave  thy  fatherless  children,  I  will  preserve  them  alive." 
Only  let  this  life  be  a  spiritual  life,  and  I  put  a  blank  in  Thy  hand  as  to  all  temporal  things,  I 
wait  for  Thy  salvation.     Amen. 

With  such  a  grandmother,  would  j^ou  not  have  a  right  to  expect  a  George  W. 
Bethune  ?  and  all  the  thousands  converted  through  his  ministry  may  date  the 
saving  power  back  to  Isabella  Graham. 

God  will  fill  the  earth  and  the  heavens  with  such  grandmothers;  we  must 
some  day  go  up  and  thank  these  dear  old  souls.  Surely  God  will  let  us  go  up  and 
tell  them  of  the  results  of  their  influence.  Among  our  first  questions  in  heaven 
will  be:  "  Where  is  grandmother  ?' '  They  will  point  her  out,  for  we  would  hardly 
know  her  even  if  we  had  seen  her  on  earth;  so  bent  over  with  years  once,  and 
there  so  straight;  so  dim  of  eye  through  the  blinding  of  earthly  tears  and  now  her 
eye  as  clear  as  heaven;  so  full  of  aches  and  pains  once  and  now  so  agile  with  celes- 
tial health,  the  wrinkles  blooming  into  carnation  roses,  and  her  step  like  the  roe 
on  the  mountains.  Yes,  I  nnist  see  her,  my  grandmother  on  my  father's  side, 
Mary  McCoy. 

You  must  see  those  women  of  the  early  nineteenth  century  and  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  answer  of  whose  prayers  is  in  your  welfare  to-day.  God  bless 
all  the  aged  women  up  and  down  the  land  and  in  all  lands  !  Make  it  as  easy  for 
the  old  folks  as  you  can.  When  they  are  sick,  get  for  them  the  best  doctors. 
Give  them  your  arm  when  the  streets  are  slippery.     Stay  with  them  all  the  time 


1 88  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

you  can.  Go  liomc  and  see  the  old  folks.  Find  the  place  for  them  in  the  hymn- 
book.  Never  be  ashamed  if  they  prefer  styles  of  apparel  a  little  antiquated. 
Never  say  anything  that  implies  they  are  in  the  way.  Make  the  road  for  the  last 
mile  as  smooth  as  you  can.  Oh,  my  !  how  you  will  miss  her  when  she  is  gone. 
I  would  give  the  house  from  over  my  head  to  see  mother.  I  have  so  many  things 
I  woul4  like  to  tell  her,  things  that  have  happened  in  the  twenty-four  years  since 
she  went  away.  Morning,  noon  and  night  let  us  thank  God  for  the  good  influ- 
ences that  have  come  down  from  good  mothers  all  the  way  back.  Timothy,  don't 
forget  3-our  mother  Eunice,  and  don't  forget  j'our  grandmother  Lois.  And  hand 
down  to  others  this  patrimony  of  blessing.  Pass  along  the  coronets.  Make 
religion  an  heirlooom  from  generation  to  generation.  Mothers  of  America,  conse- 
crate yourselves  to  God  and  you  will  help  consecrate  all  the  ages  following  !  Do  not 
dwell  so  much  on  your  hardships  that  you  miss  your  chance  of  wielding  an  influ- 
ence that  shall  look  down  upon  you  from  the  towers  of  an  endless  future.  I  know 
Martin  Luther  was  right  when  he  consoled  his  wife  over  the  death  of  their  daugh- 
ter by  vSaying:  "Don't  take  on  so,  wife;  remember  that  this  is  a  hard  world  for 
girls."  Yes,  I  go  further  and  say:  It  is  a  hard  world  for  women.  Ay,  I  go  fur- 
ther and  say:  It  is  a  hard  world  for  men.  But  for  all  women  and  men  who  thrust 
their  bodies  and  souls  in  the  hand  of  Christ  the  shining  gates  will  soon  swing  open. 
Don't  you  see  the  sickly  pallor  on  the  skj^?  That  is  the  pallor  on  the  cold  cheek 
of  the  dying  night.  Don't  you  see  the  brightening  of  the  clouds?  That  is  the 
flush  on  the  warm  forehead  of  the  morning.  Cheer  up  you  are  coming  within 
sight  of  the  Celestial  City. 

Cairo,  capital  of  Eg3'pt,  was  called  "City  of  Victory."  Athens,  capital  of 
Greece,  was  called  "  City  of  the  Violet  Crown;"  Baalbeck  was  called  "  City  of  the 
Sun;"  London  was  called  "  The  City  of  Masts."  Lucian's  imaginary  metropolis 
beyond  the  Zodiac  was  called  "The  City  of  Lanterns."  But  the  city  to  which 
you  journey  hath  all  these  in  one,  the  victory,  the  crowns,  the  masts  of  those  that 
have  been  harbored  after  the  storm.  Ay,  all  but  the  lanterns  and  the  sun,  because 
they  have  no  need  of  any  other  light,  since  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof. 


^,  »r:!fv\^  .^.^ 


>j5rn03$. 


SONGS   FOR  YOUNG  AND  OLD,   FOR  AFFLICTION  AND    DEATH. 

AND   IN   HEAVEN. 


HARMONY  ON   EARTH 


IRST  and  last  let  Christ  be  our  song.  Christ  ought  to  be  the 
cradle  song.  What  our  mothers  sang  to  us  when  they  put 
us  to  sleep  is  singing  yet.  We  may  have  forgotten  the 
words,  but  they  went  into  the  fibre  of  our  soul,  and  will 
forever  be  a  part  of  it.  It  is  not  so  much  what  you  formally 
teach  your  children  as  what  you  sing  to  them.  A  hymn  has 
wings  and  can  fly  everywhither.  One  hundred  and  fifty 
years  after  you  are  dead,  and  "Old  Mortality  ' '  has  worn  out  his  chisel  in  recutting 
your  name  on  the  tombstone,  your  great-grandchildren  will  be  singing  the  scng 
which  you  now  sing  to  your  little  ones  gathered  about  your  knee.  There  is  a 
place  in  Switzerland  where  if  you  distinctly  utter  your  voice  there  come  back  ten 
or  fifteen  distinct  echoes,  and  every  Christian  song  sung  by  a  mother  in  the  ear  of 
her  child  shall  have  10,000  echoes  coming  back  from  all  the  gates  of  heaven.  Oh, 
if  mothers  only  knew  the  power  of  this  sacred  spell,  how  much  oftener  the  little 
ones  would  be  gathered,  and  all  our  homes  would  chime  with  the  songs  of  Jesus  ! 
We  want  some  counteracting  influence  upon  our  children.  The  very  moment 
your  child  steps  into  the  street  he  steps  into  the  path  of  temptation.  There  are 
foul-mouthed  children  who  would  like  to  besoil  your  little  ones.  It  will  not  do  to 
keep  your  little  boys  and  girls  in  the  house  and  make  them  house-plants :  they 
must  have  fresh  air  and  recreation.  God  save  your  children  from  the  scathing, 
blasting,  damning  influence  of  the  streets  !  I  know  of  no  counteracting  influence 
but  the  power  of  Christian  culture  and  example.  Hold  before  your  little  ones  the 
pure  life  of  Jesus  ;  let  that  name  be  the  word  that  shall  exercise  evil  from  their 
hearts.  Give  to  your  instruction  all  the  fascination  of  music,  morning,  noon  and 
night ;  let  it  be  Jesus,  the  cradle  song.  This  is  important  if  your  children  grow 
up,  but  perhaps  they  may  not.  Their  pathway  may  be  short.  Jesus  may  be 
wanting  that  child.  Then  there  will  be  a  soundless  step  in  the  dwelling,  and  the 
youthful  pulse  will  begin  to  flutter,  and  little  hands  will  be  lifted  for  help.  You 
cannot  help.  And  a  great  agony  will  pinch  at  your  heart,  and  the  cradle  will  be 
empty,  and  the  world  will  be  empty,  and  your  soul  will  be  empty.  No  little  feet 
standing  on  the  stairs.  No  toys  scattered  on  the  carpet.  No  quick  following 
from  room  to  room.     No  strange  and  wondering  questions.     No  upturned  face, 

(189) 


I  go 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


with  laughing  bkie  eyes,  come  for  a  kiss  ;  but  only  a  grave,  and  a  wreath  of  white 
blossoms  on  the  top  of  it,  and  bitter  desolation,  and  a  sighing  at  night- fall  with  no 
one  to  put  to  bed,  and  a  wet  pillow.  The  heavenly  Shepherd  will  take  that  lamb 
safely  anyhow,  whether  you  have  been  faithful  or  unfaithful,  but  would  it  not  have 


KI.rMIil'.K    SONG. 


been  pleasanter  if  you  could  have  heard  from  those  lips  the  praises  of  Christ?  I 
never  read  anything  more  beautiful  than  this  about  a  child's  departure.  The 
account  said,  "  She  folded  her  hands,  kissed  her  mother  good-bye,  sang  her  hymn, 
turned  her  face  to  the  wall,  said  her  little  prayer,  and  then  swung  off  into  eternal 
peace." 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


191 


Oh,  if  I  could  gather  up  in  one  paragraph  the  last  words  of  the  little  ones 
who  have  gone  out  from  these  Christian  circles,  and  I  could  picture  the  calm 


SUNG  TO   SI.EEP. 

looks,  and  the  folded  hands,  and  sweet  departure,  methinks  it  would  be  grand  and 
beautiful  as  one  of  heaven's  great  doxologies  ! 


J I  :,l     I.IK1-:    1 


iiM.-  l>\'ni  ./  /\ii>i/nii;  by  F.uianucl  Spitzcr. 


(192) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


193 


I  next  speak  of  Christ  as  the  old  man's  song.     Quick  music  loses  its  charm 
for  the  aged  ear.     The  school  girl  asks  for  a  schottish  or  a  glee  ;  but  her  grand- 
mother asks  for  "  Balerma,"  or  the  "  Portuguese  Hymn."     Fifty  years  of  trouble 
have  tamed  the  spirit,  and  the  keys  of  the  music-board  must  have  a  solemn  tread. 
Though  the  voice 
may  be  tremulous, 
so    that    grandfa- 
ther will  not  trust 
it  in  church,  .still 
he  has  the  psalm 
book  open  before 
him,  and  he  .sings 
with  his  soul. 
He   hums    his 
grandchild  asleep 
with  the  same 
tune  he  sang  forty 
years   ago  in    the 
old  countr}^  meet- 
ing-house.    Some 
day  the  choir  sings 
a  tune  so  old  that 
the  young  people 
do   not   know  it ; 
but    it   starts    the 
tears    down    the 
cheek  of  the  aged 
man,    for    it    re- 
minds him  of  the 
revival    scene    in 
which  he  partici- 
pated, and  of  the 
radiant  faces  that 
long  since  went  to 
dust,    and   of  the 
gray-haired    min- 
ister leaning  over  ^  chubby  pouter. 

the  pulpit  and  sounding  the  tidings  of  great  joy.  I  was  one  Thanksgiving  Day 
in  my  pulpit,  in  Syracuse,  N.  Y. ,  and  Rev.  Daniel  Waldo,  at  ninety-eight  years 
of  age,   stood  beside  me.     The  choir  sang  a  tune.     I    .said:   "I  am  sorry  they 


194  Til]'    PATHWAY  OF  IJI-K. 

sang  that  new  tune;  nobod}-  seems  to  know   it."      "Bless   >oit,   my   son,"   said 
the  old  man,  "  I  heard  that  seventy  years  ago." 

There  was  a  song  to-day  that  touched  the  life  of  the  aged  with  holy  fire,  and 
kindled  a  glory  on  their  vision  that  our  younger  eyesight  cannot  see.  It  was  the 
song  of  salvation — ^Jesus,  who  fed  them  all  their  lives  long;  Jesus,  who  wiped 
away  their  tears;  Jesus,  who  stood  by  them  when  all  else  failed;  Jesus,  in  who.se 
name  their  marriage  was  consecrated,  and  whose  resurrection  has  poured  light 
upon  the  graves  of  their  departed.  Blessed  the  Bible  in  which  spectacled  old  age 
reads  the  promise,  "I  will  never  leave  you,  never  forsake  you  !"  Blessed  the 
staff  on  which  the  worn-out  pilgrim  totters  on  toward  the  welcome  of  his 
Redeemer  !  Blessed  the  hymn-book  in  wdiicli  the  faltering  tongue  and  the  failing 
eyes  find  Jesus,  the  old  man's  song. 

I  .speak  to  you  again  of  Jesus  as  the  night-song.  Job  speaks  of  Him  who 
giveth  songs  in  the  night.  John  Welch,  the  old  Scotch  mini.ster,  used  to  put  a 
plaid  across  his  bed  on  cold  nights,  and  some  one  a.sked  him  why  he  put  that 
there.  He  said,  "  Oh,  .sometimes  in  the  night  I  want  to  .sing  the  prai.se  of  Jesus, 
and  to  get  down  and  pray;  then  I  just  take  that  plaid  and  wrap  it  around  me,  to 
keep  myself  from  the  cold."  vSongs  in  the  night  !  Night  of  trouble  has  come 
down  upon  many  of  you.  Conmiercial  losses  put  out  one  star,  slanderous  abuse 
put  out  another  star,  domestic  bereavement  has  put  out  a  thousand  lights,  and 
gloom  has  been  added  to  gloom,  and  chill  to  chill,  and  .sting  to  sting,  and  one 
midnight  has  .seemed  to  borrow  the  fold  from  another  midnight  to  wrap  itself  in 
more  unbearable  darkness;  but  Christ  has  spoken  peace  to  your  heart,  and  you 
can  sing: 

Jl'sus,  lovtT  of  my  soul, 
Let  nie  to  Thy  bosom  fly. 

While  the  billows  near  me  roll, 
While  the  tempest  still  is  high. 

Hide  me,  O  my  Saviour,  hide, 
Till  the  storm  of  life  is  past  ; 

Safe  into  the  haven  guide — 
Oh,  receive  my  soul  at  last. 

SONGS    IN  THE    NIGHT. 

Songs  in  the  night  !  Songs  in  the  night  !  l'V)r  the  sick,  who  have  no  one  to 
turn  the  hot  pillow,  no  one  to  put  the  taper  on  the  stand,  no  one  to  put  ice  on  the 
temple,  or  ]wur  out  the  soothing  anodyne,  or  utter  one  cheerful  word — yet  songs 
in  the  night  !  I'or  the  poor,  who  freeze  in  the  winter's  cold,  and  .swelter  in  the 
summer's  heat,  and  nnuKh  the  hard  crusts  that  bleed  the  .sore  gums,  and  .shiver 
under  blankets  that  cainiot  any  longer  be  patched,  and  tremble  because  rent-day 
is  come  and  thev  mav  be  set  out  on   the  sidewalk,  and  looking  into  the  starved 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


t95 


face  of  the  child  and  seeing  famine  there  and  death  there,  coming  home  from  the 
bakery  and  saying  in  the  presence  of  the  little  famished  ones,  "  O  my  God,  flour 
has  gone  up  !"     Yet  songs  in  the  night !     Songs  in  the  night  !     For  the  widow 


HENRY   V.    AT   THR   BATTI,R   OF  AGINCOURT. 


who  goes  to  get  the  back  pay  of  her  husband,  slain  by  the  "  sharpshooters,"  and 
knows  it  is  the  last  help  she  will  have,  moving  out  of  a   comfortable  home  in 


196  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

desolation,  with  pale  cheek  and  lustreless  eye.  Yet  songs  in  the  night  !  Foi  the 
soldier  in  the  field  hospital,  no  surgeon  to  bind  up  the  gunshot  fracture,  no  water 
for  the  hot  lips,  no  kind  hand  to  brush  away  the  flies  from  the  fresh  wound,  no 
one  to  take  the  loving  farewell,  the  groaning  of  others  poured  into  his  own  groan, 
the  blasphemy  of  others  plowing  up  his  own  spirit,  the  condensed  bitterness  of 
dying  away  from  home  among  strangers.  Yet  songs  in  the  night !  Songs  in  the 
night  !  ''Ah  !"  said  one  dying  soldier,  "  tell  mv  mother  that  last  night  there  was 
not  one  cloud  between  my  soul  and  Jesus."  Songs  in  the  night  !  Songs  in  the 
night ! 

The  Sabbath  day  has  come.  From  the  altars  of  10,000  churches  has  smoked 
up  the  savor  of  sacrifice.  Ministers  of  the  gospel  are  now  preaching  in  plain 
English,  in  broad  Scotch,  in  flowing  Italian,  in  harsh  Choctaw.  God's  people 
have  assembled  in  Hindoo  temple,  and  Moravian  church,  and  Quaker  meeting 
house,  and  sailors'  Bethel,  and  king's  chapel,  and  high-towered  cathedral.  They 
sang,  and  the  song  floated  off  amidst  the  spice  groves,  or  struck  the  icebergs,  or 
floated  off  into  the  Western  pines,  or  was  drowned  in  the  clamor  of  the  great  cities. 
Lumbermen  sang  it,  and  the  factor}'  girls,  and  the  children  in  the  Sabbath  class, 
and  the  trained  choirs  in  great  assemblages.  Trappers,  with  the  same  voice  with 
which  they  shouted  yesterday  in  the  stag  hunt,  and  mariners,  with  throats  that 
only  a  few  days  ago  .sounded  in  the  hoar.se  blast  of  the  sea  hurricane,  they  sang  it. 
One  theme  for  the  sermons.  One  burden  for  the  song.  Jesus  for  the  invocation. 
Jesus  for  the  Scripture  lesson.  Jesus  for  the  baptismal  font.  Jesus  for  the  sacra- 
mental cup.     Jesus  for  the  benediction. 

But  the  day  will  go  by.  It  will  roll  away  on  swift  wheels  of  light  and  love. 
Again  the  churches  will  be  lighted.  Tides  of  people  again  setting  down  the 
streets.  Whole  families  coming  up  the  church  aisle.  We  must  have  one  more 
sermon,  two  prayers,  three  songs,  and  one  benediction.  What  shall  we  preach? 
What  shall  we  read  ?  What  shall  it  be,  children  ?  Aged  men  and  women,  what 
shall  it  be  ?     Young  men  and  maidens,  what  shall  it  be  ? 

THE  EVERLASTING  SONG. 

We  sing  His  birth — the  barn  that  sheltered  Him,  the  mother  that  nur.sed 
Him,  the  cattle  that  fed  beside  Him,  the  angels  that  woke  up  the  shepherds, 
scattering  light  over  the  midnight  hills.  We  sing  His  ministry- — the  tears  He 
wiped  away  from  the  eyes  of  the  orphans,  the  lame  men  who  forgot  their  crutches, 
the  damsel  who  from  the  bier  bounded  out  into  the  .sunlight,  her  locks  shaking 
down  over  the  flushed  cheek,  the  hungr\-  thousand  who  broke  the  bread  as  it 
blo.ssonicd  into  larger  loaves — that  miracle  by  which  a  boy  with  five  loaves  and 
two  fishes  became  the  sutler  for  a  whole  ann\-.  We  sing  His  sorrows— His  stone- 
bruised  feet,  His  aching  heart,  His  mountain  loneliness.  His  desert  hunger,  His 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  197 

storm-pelted  body,  the  eternity  of  anguish  that  shot  through  His  last  moments, 
and  the  immeasurable  ocean  of  torment  that  heaved  up  against  His  cross  in  one 
foaming,  omnipotent  surge,  the  sun  dashed  out,  and  the  dead,  shroud- wrapped, 
breaking  open  their  sepulchres  and  rushing  out  to  see  what  was  the  matter.  We 
sing  His  resurrection — the  guard  that  could  not  keep  Him,  the  sorrow  of  His 
disciples,  the  cloud  piling  up  on  either  side  in  pillared  splendors  as  He  went 
through  treading  the  pathless  air,  higher  and  higher,  until  He  came  to  the  foot 
of  the  throne,  and  all  heaven  kept  jubilee  at  the  return  of  the  conqueror. 

On  earth  we  sing  harvest  songs  as  the  wheat  comes  into  the  barn  and  the 
barracks  are  filled.  You  know  there  is  no  such  time  on  a  farm  as  when  they  get 
the  crops  in;  and  so  in  heaven  it  will  be  a  harvest  song  on  the  part  of  those 
who  on  earth  sowed  in  tears  and  reaped  in  joy.  Lift  up  your  heads,  ye  ever- 
lasting gates,  and  let  the  sheaves  come  in  !  Angels  shout  all  through  the 
heavens,  and  multitudes  come  down  the  hills,  crying:  "Harvest  home!  harv^est 
home  !" 

There  is  nothing  more  bewitching  to  one's  ear  than  the  song  of  sailors  far  out 
at  sea,  whether  in  day  or  night,  as  they  pull  away  at  the  ropes — the  music  is  weird 
and  thrilling.  So  the  song  in  heaven  will  be  a  sailor's  song.  They  were  voyagers 
once,  and  thought  they  could  never  get  to  shore,  and  before  they  could  get  things 
snug  and  trim  the  cyclone  struck  them.  But  now  they  are  safe.  Once  they  went 
with  damaged  rigging,  guns  of  distress  booming  through  the  storm  ;  but  the  pilot 
came  aboard  and  he  brought  them  into  the  harbor.  Now  they  sing  of  the  breakers 
past,  the  light-houses  that  showed  them  where  to  sail,  the  pilot  that  took  them 
through  the  straits,  the  eternal  shore  on  which  they  landed. 

Ay,  it  will  be  the  children's  song.  You  know  very  well  that  the  vast 
majority  of  our  race  die  in  infancy,  and  it  is  estimated  that  eighteen  thousand 
millions  of  the  little  ones  are  standing  before  God.  When  they  shall  rise  up 
about  the  throne  to  sing — the  millions  and  the  millions  of  the  little  ones — ah  ! 
that  will  be  music  for  you  !  These  played  in  the  streets  of  Babylon  and  Thebes; 
these  plucked  lilies  from  the  foot  of  Olivet  while  Christ  was  preaching  about 
them;  these  waded  in  Siloam;  these  were  victims  of  Herod's  massacre;  these  were 
thrown  to  crocodiles  or  into  the  fire;  these  came  up  from  Christian  homes,  and 
these  were  foundlings  on  the  city  commons — children  everywhere  in  all  that  land; 
children  in  the  towers,  children  on  the  seas  of  glass,  children  on  the  battlements. 
Ah  !  if  you  do  not  like  children  do  not  go  there.  They  are  in  vast  majority,  and 
what  a  song  when  they  lift  it  around  about  the  throne  ! 

The  Christian  singers  and  composers  of  all  ages  will  be  there  to  join  in  that 
song.  Thomas  Hastings  will  be  there.  Lowell  Mason  will  be  there.  Bradbury 
will  be  there.  Beethoven  and  Mozart  will  be  there.  They  who  sounded  the 
cymbals  and  the  trumpets  in  the  ancient  temples  will  be  there.      The  40,000 


lyS 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 


harpers  that  stood  at  the  ancient  dedication  will  be  there.  The  200  singers  that 
assisted  on  that  day  will  be  there.  Patriarchs  who  lived  amidst  threshing-floors, 
shepherds  who  watched  amidst  Chaldean  hills,  prophets  who  walked  with  long 
beards  and  coarse  apparel,  pronouncing  woe  against  ancient  abominations,  will 
meet  the  more  recent  martyrs  who  went  up  with  leaping  cohorts  of  fire;  and  some 
will  speak  of  the  Jesus  of  whom  they  prophesied,  and  others  of  the  Jesus  for 
whom  they  died.  Oh,  what  a  song  !  It  came  to  John  upon  Patmos,  it  came  to 
Calvin  in  the  prison,  it  dropped  to  John  Knox  in  the  fire,  and  sometimes  that 
song  has  come  to  your  ear,  perhaps,  for  I  really  do  think  it  sometimes  breaks  over 
the  battlements  of  heaven. 


THE  CHOIR  OF  HEAVEN. 

A  Christian  woman,  the  wife  of  a  minister  of  the  gospel,  was  dying  in  the 
parsonage,   near   the  old   church,   where   on  Saturday  night   the   choir   used  to 

assembl  e 
and  rehearse 
for  the  fol- 
lowing Sab- 
bath, and 
she  said : 
"How 
strangely 
sweet  the 
choir  re- 
hearses to- 
night; they 
have  been 
rehearsing 
there  for  an 
hour." 
the   choir    is 


DESTRUCTION   OF  THE   BABES. 


"No,"    said   some   one   about    her; 
not  rehearsing  to-night." 

"Yes,"  .she  said;  "I  know  they  are.  I  hear  them  sing;  how  very  sweetly 
they  sing  !" 

Now,  it  was  not  a  choir  of  earth  that  she  heard,  but  the  choir  of  heaven.  I 
think  that  Jesus  sometimes  sets  ajar  the  door  of  heaven,  and  a  passage  of  that 
rapture  greets  our  ears.  The  minstrels  of  heaven  strike  such  a  tremendous  strain 
the  walls  of  jasper  cannot  hold  it. 

The  first  great  concert  I  ever  attended  was  in  New  York,  when  Julien,  in  the 
•'  Crystal  Palace,"  stood  before  hundreds  of  singers  and  hundred  of  players  upon 


A  SONG  WITHOUT  WORDS.— /'Vc';//  the  Painting  by  C.  Button  Bather. 


(199) 


200 


THE  PATHWAY  01^  IvlFE. 


instruments.  Some  of  you  may  remember  that  occasion;  it  was  the  first  one  of 
the  kind  at  which  I  was  present,  and  I  shall  never  forget  it.  I  saw  that  one  man 
standing,  and  with  the  hand  and  foot  wield  that  great  harmony,  beating  the  time. 
It  was  to  me  overwhelming.  But,  oh,  the  grander  scene  when  they  shall  come 
from  the  East  and  from  the  West,  and  from  the  North  and  from  the  South,  "a 
great  multitude  that  no  man  can  number,"  into  the  temple  of  the  skies,  host 
beyond  host,  rank  beyond  rank,  gallery  above  gallery,  and  Jesus  shall  stand 
before  that  great  host  to  conduct  the  harmony,  with  His  wounded  hands  and  His 
wounded  feet !  Like  the  voice  of  many  waters,  like  the  voice  of  mighty  thunder- 
ings,  they  shall  cr>':  "  Worthy  is  the  lamb  that  was  slain  to  receive  blessings,  and 
riches,  and  honor,  and  glory,  and  power,  world  without  end.  Amen  and  Amen  !" 
Oh,  if  my  ear  shall  hear  no  other  sweet  sounds,  may  I  hear  that  !  If  I  join  no 
other  glad  assemblage,  maj^  I  join  that. 

I  was  reading  of  the  battle  of  Agincourt,  in  which  Henry  V.  figured;  and  it 
is  said  after  the  battle  was  won,  gloriously  won,  the  king  wanted  to  acknowledge 
the  divine  interposition,  and  he  ordered  the  chaplain  to  read  the  Psalm  of  David; 
and  when  he  came  to  the  word,  "  Not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  but  unto  Thy  name  be 
the  praise,"  the  king  dismounted,  and  all  the  cavalry  dismounted,  and  all  the 
great  host,  officers  and  men,  threw  themselves  on  their  faces.  Oh,  at  the  story  of 
the  Saviour's  love  and  the  Saviour's  deliverance,  shall  we  not  prostrate  ourselves 
before  Him  now,  hosts  of  earth  and  hosts  of  heaven,  falling  upon  our  faces  and 
crying:   "  Not  unto  us,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  Thy  name  be  the  glory  !" 


l<^^4Ss- 


ProCttniijT* 


THE  VULGARITY  OF  A  VILE  HABIT,   AND   STARTLING   INCIDENTS   OF   ITS   SWIFT 

PUNISHMENT. 

STORY  oriental  and  marvelous  is  that  of  Job.  Job  was  the 
richest  man  in  all  the  East.  He  had  camels  and  oxen,  and 
asses  and  sheep,  and,  what  would  have  made  him  rich  without 
anything  else,  seven  sons  and  three  daughters.  It  was  the 
habit  of  these  children  to  gather  together  for  family  reunion. 
One  day  Job  is  thinking  of  his  children  as  gathered  together 
at  a  banquet  at  the  elder  brother's  house. 

While  the  old  man  is  seated  at  his  tent  door  he  sees  some 
one  running,  evidently,  from  his  manner,  bringing  bad  news.  What  is 
the  matter  now  ? 

"  Oh,"  says  the  messenger,  "  a  foraging  party  of  Sabeans  have  fallen 
upon  the  oxen  and  the  asses  and  destroyed  them  and  butchered  all  the 
servants  except  myself 

Stand  aside.     Another  messenger  running.      What  is  the  matter  now  ? 
"  Oh,"  says  the  man,  "  the  lightning  has  struck  the  sheep  and  the  shepherds, 
and  all  the  shepherds  are  destroyed  except  myself." 

Stand    aside.       Another    messenger    running.      What    is   the    matter    now  ? 
"Oh,"  he  says,  "the  Chaldeans  have  captured  the  camels  and  slain  all  the 
camel  drivers  except  myself ' ' 

Stand    aside.      Another    messenger    running.      What    is    the    matter    now? 
"Oh,"  he  says,  "  a  hurricane  struck  the  four  corners  of  the  tent  where  your 
children  were  assembled  at  the  banquet,  and  they  are  all  dead." 

But  the  chapter  of  calamity  has  not  ended.  Job  was  smitten  with  elephanti- 
asis, or  black  leprosy.  Tumors  from  head  to  foot,  forehead  ridged  with  tubercles, 
eyelashes  fall  out,  nostrils  excoriated,  voice  destroyed,  intolerable  exhalations  from 
the  entire  body,  until  with  none  to  dress  his  sores,  he  sits  down  in  the  ashes,  with 
nothing  but  pieces  of  broken  pottery  to  use  in  the  surgery  of  his  wounds.  At 
this  moment,  when  he  needed  all  encouragement  and  all  consolation,  his  wife 
comes  in,  in  a  fret  and  a  rage,  and  says: 

"This  is  intolerable.  Our  property  gone,  our  children  slain,  and  now  you 
covered  up  with  this  loathsome  and  disgusting  disease.  Why  don't  you  swear? 
Curse  God,  and  die  !" 

(201) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


PROFANITY   EVERYWHERE. 

Ah,  Job  knew  right  well  that  swearing  would  not  cure  one  of  the  tumors  of 
his  agonized  body,  would  not  bring  back  one  of  his  destroyed  camels,  would  not 
restore  one  of  his  dead  children.  He  knew  that  profanity  would  only  make  the 
pain  more  unbearable,  and  the  poverty  more  distressing,  and  the  bereavement 
more  excruciating.     But  judging  from  the  profanity  abroad  in  our  day,  j'ou  might 


A  YOUNG  MAN  OF  THH  \^oViX,V).  —  FroiH  the  Fainting  by  H .  H~elmick 

come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  some  great  advantage  to  be  reaped  from  the 
habit  or  custom. 

Blasphemy  is  all  abroad.  You  hear  it  in  every  direction.  The  drayman 
swearing  at  his  cart,  the  sewing  girl  imprecating  the  tangled  skein,  the  accountant 
cursing  the  long  line  of  troublesome  figures.  Swearing  at  the  store,  swearing  in 
the  loft,  swearing  in  the  cellar,  swearing  on  the  street,  swearing  in  the  factory. 
Children  swear;  men  swear;  women  swear.     Swearing  from  the  rough  calling  on 


A  CLOUD  ON  HIS  BROW,  A  CURSE  IN  HIS  HEART. 


(203) 


204  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

the  Almighty  in  the  low  restaurant  clear  up  to  the  reckless  "O  Loid  !"  of  a 
glittering  drawing-room;  and  the  one  is  as  much  blasphemy  as  the  other. 

There  are  times  when  we  must  cry  out  to  the  Lord,  by  reason  of  our  physical 
agony  or  our  mental  distress,  and  that  is  only  throwing  out  our  weak  hand  toward 
the  strong  arm  of  a  father.  It  was  no  profanity  when  James  A.  Garfield,  shot  in 
the  Washington  depot,  cried  out:  "  My  God,  what  does  this  mean  !"  There  is 
no  profanity  in  calling  out  upon  God  in  the  day  of  trouble,  in  the  day  of  dark- 
ness, in  the  day  of  physical  anguish,  in  the  day  of  bereavement ;  but  I  am  speak- 
ing now  of  the  triviality  and  of  the  recklessness  with  which  the  name  of  God  is 
sometimes  used.     The  whole  land  is  cursed  with  it. 

A  gentleman  coming  from  the  far  West  sat  in  the  car  day  after  day  behind 
two  persons  who  were  indulging  in  profanity,  and  he  made  up  his  mind  he  would 
make  a  record  of  their  profanities,  and  at  the  end  of  tw^o  days  several  sheets  of 
paper  were  filled  with  these  imprecations,  and  at  the  end  of  the  journey  he  handed 
the  paper  to  one  of  the  persons  in  front  of  him. 

"  Is  it  possible,"  said  the  man,  "that  we  have  uttered  so  many  profanities 
the  last  few  days?" 

"  It  is,"  replied  the  gentleman. 

"Then,"  said  the  man  who  had  taken  the  manuscript,  "  I  will  never  swear 
again." 

But  it  is  a  comparativel}-  unimportant  thing  if  a  man  makes  record  of  our 
improprieties  of  speech.  The  more  memorable  consideration  is  that  every  improper 
word,  every  oath  uttered,  has  a  record  in  the  book  of  God's  remembrance,  and 
that  the  day  will  come  when  all  our  crimes  of  speech,  if  unrepented  of,  will  be  our 
condemnation.  I  shall  not  deal  in  abstractions;  I  hate  abstractions.  I  am  going 
to  have  a  plain  talk  with  the  world,  through  the  medium  of  this  book,  about  a 
habit  that  all  admit  to  be  wrong. 

The  habit  grows  in  the  community  from  the  fact  that  3'oung  people  think  it 
manly  to  swear.  Little  children,  hardly  able  to  walk  straight  on  the  street,  yet 
have  enough  distinctness  to  let  3'ou  know  that  they  are  damning  their  own  souls, 
or  damning  the  souls  of  others.  It  is  an  awful  thing  the  first  time  the  little  feet 
are  lifted  to  have  them  set  down  on  the  burning  pavement  of  hell  ! 

Between  sixteen  and  twenty  years  of  age  there  is  apt  to  come  a  time  when  a 
young  man  is  as  much  ashamed  of  not  being  able  to  swear  gracefull}^  as  he  is  of 
the  dizziness  of  his  first  cigar.  He  has  his  hat,  his  boot  and  his  coat  of  the  right 
pattern,  and  now,  if  he  can  only  swear  without  awkwardness,  and"  as  well  as  his 
comrades,  he  believes  he  is  in  the  fashion.  There  are  j^oung  men  who  walk  in  an 
atmosphere  of  imprecation — oaths  on  their  lips,  under  their  tongues,  nesting  in 
their  shock  of  hair.  They  abstain  from  it  in  the  elegant  drawing-room,  but  the 
street  and  the  club  house  ring  with  their  profanities.     They  have  no  regard  for 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


20S 


God,  although  they  have  great  respect  for  the  ladies  !     My  young  brother,  there 
is  no  manliness  in  that.     The  most  ungentlemanly  thing  a  man  can  do  is  to  swear. 


vSTRrET  URCHINS  —  1 1 0]>i  tlu  PattiHtig  by  J.  G.  Browiu 
WHERE  CHILDREN   LEARN  TO  SWEAR. 

Fathers  foster  this  great  crime.  There  are  parents  who  are  very  cautious  not 
to  swear  in  the  presence  of  their  children ;  in  a  moment  of  sudden  anger  they  look 
around  to  see  if  the  children  are  present  when  they  indulge  in  this  habit.     Do  yon 


2o6  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

not  know,  O  father,  that  your  child  is  aware  of  the  fact  that  you  swear.  He 
overheard  j-ou  in  the  next  room,  or  some  one  has  informed  him  of  your  habit. 
He  is  practicing  now.  In  ten  years  he  will  swear  as  well  as  you  do.  Do  not,  O 
father,  be  under  the  delusion  that  you  may  swear  and  your  son  not  know  it.  It  is 
an  awful  thing  to  start  the  habit  in  a  family — the  father  to  be  profane,  and  then  to 
have  the  echo  of  his  example  come  back  from  other  generations,  so  that  genera- 
tions after  generations  curse  the  Lord. 

The  crime  is  also  fostered  by  master  mechanics,  boss  carpenters,  those  who 
are  at  the  head  of  men  in  hat  factories,  and  in  dock  yards,  and  at  the  head  of 
great  business  establishments.  When  you  go  down  to  look  at  the  work  of  the 
scaffolding,  and  you  find  it  is  not  done  right,  what  do  5'ou  say  ?  It  is  not  praying, 
is  it?     The  employer  swears;  his  employe  is  tempted  to  swear.     The  man  says: 

"  I  don't  know  why  my  employer,  worth  $50,000  or  $100,000,  should  have 
any  luxury  I  should  be  denied,  simply  because  I  am  poor.  Because  I  am  poor  and 
dependent  on  a  day's  wages,  haven't  I  as  much  right  to  swear  as  he  has,  with  his 
large  income?" 

Employers  swear,  and  that  makes  so  many  employes  swear. 

The  habit  also  comes  from  infirmity  of  temper.  There  are  a  good  many 
people  who,  when  they  are  at  peace,  have  righteousness  of  speech,  but  when 
angered  they  blaze  with  imprecation.  Perhaps  all  the  rest  of  the  j^ear  they  talk 
in  right  language,  but  now  they  pour  out  the  fury  of  a  whole  year  in  one  red-hot 
paragraph  of  five  minutes.  I  knew  of  a  man  who  excused  himself  for  the  habit, 
saying,  "  I  only  swear  once  in  a  great  while.  I  must  do  that  just  to  clear  myself 
out." 

The  habit  comes  also  from  the  profuse  use  of  by-words.  The  transition  from 
a  by -word  w^hich  may  be  perfectly  harmless  to  imprecation  and  profanity,  is  not  a 
very  large  transition.  It  is  "  M3'  stars!"  and  "Mercy  on  me!"  and  "Good 
gracious  !"  and  "  By  George  !"  and  "  By  Jove  !"  and  you  go  on  with  that  a  little 
w^hile,  and  then  3'ou  swear.  These  words,  perfectly  harmless  in  themselves,  are 
next  door  t(i  imprecation  and  blaspheni}-,  A  profuse  use  of  by-words  always  ends 
in  profanity.  The  habit  is  creeping  up  into  the  highest  styles  of  societ}'.  Women 
have  no  patience  with  flat  and  unvarnished  profanity.  The}^  will  order  a  man  out 
of  the  parlor  indulging  in  blasphemy,  and  yet  3'ou  will  sometimes  find  them  with 
fairy  fan  to  the  face,  and  under  chandeliers  which  bring  no  blush  to  their  cheek, 
taking  on  their  lips  the  holiest  of  names  in  utter  triviality. 

Why,  my  readers,  the  English  language  is  comprehensive  and  capable  of 
expressing  all  manner  of  feeling  and  ever}^  degree  of  energy.  Are  you  happ)-, 
Noah  Webster  will  give  you  a  thousand  words  with  which  to  express  your  exhila- 
ration. Are  j-ou  righteously  indignant,  there  are  whole  armories  in  the  vocabu- 
lary, righteous  vocabulary' — whole  armies  of  denunciation,  and  scorn,  and  sarcasm, 


(207) 


2o8  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

and  irony,  and  caricature,  and  wrath.  You  express  yourself  against  some  mean- 
ness or  hypocrisy  in  all  the  oaths  that  ever  smoked  up  from  the  pit,  and  I  will 
come  right  on  after  you  and  give  you  a  thousandfold  more  emphasis  of  denuncia- 
tion to  the  same  meanness  and  the  same  hypocrisy  in  words  across  which  no  slime 
has  ever  trailed,  and  into  which  the  fires  of  hell  have  never  shot  their  forked 
tongues — the  pure,  the  innocent,  God-honored  Anglo-Saxon  in  which  Milton 
sang,  and  John  Bunyan  dreamed  and  Shakespeare  dramatized. 

There  is  no  excuse  for  profanity  when  we  have  such  a  magnificent  language 
— such  a  flow  of  good  words,  potent  words,  mighty  words,  words  just  to  suit  every 
crisis  and  every  case.  Whatever  be  the  cause  of  it,  profanity  is  on  the  increase, 
and  if  you  do  not  know  it,  it  is  because  your  ears  have  been  hardened  by  the  din 
of  imprecations  so  that  j-ou  are  not  stirred  and  moved  as  you  ought  to  be  by  pro- 
fanities in  these  cities  which  are  enough  to  bring  a  hurricane  of  fire  like  that 
which  consumed  Sodom. 

Do  you  know  that  this  trivial  use  of  God's  name  results  in  perjury  ?  Do  you 
know  that  people  who  take  the  name  of  God  on  their  lips  in  recklessness  and 
thoughtlessness  are  fostering  the  crime  of  perjury?  Make  the  name  of  God  a 
foot- ball  in  the  community,  and  it  has  no  power  when  in  court  room  or  in  legis- 
lative assembly  it  is  employed  in  solemn  adjuration  !  See  the  way  sometimes  they 
administer  the  oath:  "S'help  you  God — kiss  the  book  !"  Smuggling,  which  is 
always  a  violation  of  the  oath,  becomes  in  some  circles  a  grand  joke.  You  say 
to  a  man:  "  How  is  it  possible  for  3'ou  to  sell  these  goods  so  very  cheap?  I  can't 
understand  it." 

"  Ah  !"  he  replies,  with  a  twunkle  of  the  eye,  "the  Custom  House  tariff  of 
these  goods  isn't  as  much  as  it  might  be."  An  oath  does  not  mean  as  much  as  it 
would  were  the  name  of  God  used  in  reverence  and  in  solemnity.  Why  is  it  that 
so  often  jurors  render  unaccountable  verdicts  and  judges  give  unaccountable 
charges,  and  useless  railroad  schemes  pass  in  our  State  capitols,  and  there  are  most 
unjust  changes  made  in  tariffs — tariff  lifted  from  one  thing  and  put  upon  another? 

What  is  an  oath  ?  Anything  solemn  ?  Anything  that  calls  upon  the  Almighty  ? 
Anything  that  marks  an  event  in  a  man's  history?  Oh,  no!  It  is  kissing  the 
Book  !  There  is  no  habit,  I  tell  you  plainly — and  I  write  to  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  men  to-day  who  will  thank  me  for  my  assertion — I  tell  you,  my 
brother,  there  is  no  habit  that  so  depletes  a  man's  nature  as  the  habit  of  profanity. 
You  might  as  well  try  to  raise  vineyards  and  orchards  on  the  sides  of  belching 
Stromboli  as  to  raise  anything  good  in  a  heart  from  wdiich  there  pours  out  the 
scoria  of  profanity.  You  may  swear  yourself  down;  you  cannot  swear  yourself 
up.  When  the  Mohammedan  finds  a  piece  of  paper  he  cannot  read,  he  puts  it 
aside  very  cautiously  for  fear  the  name  of  God  may  be  on  it.  That  is  one 
extreme.     We  go  to  the  other.     Now,  what  is  the  cure  of  this  habit?     It  is  a 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


209 


mighty  habit.  Men  have  struggled  for  years  to  get  over  it.  There  are  men  of 
God  who  would  give  half  their  fortune  to  get  rid  of  it.  An  aged  man  wa.<;  in  the 
delirium  of  a  fever.  He  had  for  many  years  hved  a  most  upright  life  and  was 
honored  in  all  the  community,  but  when  he  came  into  the  delirium  of  this  fever 


TELLING   THE   SECRET  OF   A    BAD    DEED. 

he  was  full  of  imprecation  and  profanity,  and  they  could  not  understand  it.     After 

he  came  to  his  right  reason  he  explained  it.      He  said: 

' '  When  I  was  a  young  man  I  was  very  profane.     I  conquered  the  habit,  but 

I  had  to  struggle  all  through  life.     You  haven't  for  forty  years  heard  me  say  an 

improper  word,  but  it  has  been  an  awful  struggle.     The  tiger  is  chained,  but  he  is 

alive  yet." 

14 


2IO  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

HOW  TO  OVERCOME  THE  HABIT. 

If  you  would  get  rid  of  this  habit,  I  want  you,  my  friends,  to  dwell  upon  the 
uselessness  of  it.  Did  a  volley  of  oaths  ever  start  a  heavy  load  ?  Did  they  ever 
extirpate  meanness  from  a  customer  ?  Did  they  ever  collect  a  bad  debt  ?  Did 
they  ever  cure  a  toothache  ?  Did  they  ever  stop  the  twinge  of  the  rheumatism  ?  ■ 
Did  they  ever  help  you  forward  one  step  in  the  right  direction  ?  Come,  now,  tell 
me,  ye  who  have  had  the  most  experience  in  this  habit,  how  much  have  you 
made  out  of  it?  Five  thousand  dollars  in  all  your  life?  No.  One  thousand? 
No.  One  hundred?  No.  One  dollar?  No.  One  cent?  No.  If  the  habit  be 
so  utterly  useless,  away  with  it. 

But  you  say:  "  I  have  struggled  to  overcome  the  habit  a  long  while,  and  I 
have  not  been  successful."  You  struggled  in  your  own  strength,  my  brother. 
If  ever  a  man  wants  God,  it  is  in  such  a  crisis  of  his  history.  God  alone  by  His 
grace  can  emancipate  you  from  that  trouble.  Call  upon  Him  day  and  night  that 
you  may  be  delivered  from  this  crime.  Remember,  also,  in  the  cure  of  this  habit, 
that  it  arouses  God's  indignation.  The  Bible  reiterates  from  chapter  to  chapter, 
and  verse  after  verse,  the  fact  that  profanity  accurses  this  life  and  that  it  makes  a 
man  miserable  for  eternity.  There  is  not  a  sin  in  all  the  catalogue  that  is  so  often 
peremptorily  and  suddenly  punished  in  this  world  as  the  sin  of  profanity.  There 
is  not  a  city  or  a  village  but  can  give  an  illustration  of  a  man  struck  down  at  the 
moment  of  imprecation.  A  couple  of  years  ago,  briefly  referring  to  this  in  a 
sermon,  I  gave  some  instances  in  which  God  had  struck  swearers  dead  at  the 
moment  of  their  profanity.  That  sermon  brought  to  me  from  many  parts  of  this 
land  and  other  lands  statements  of  similar  cases  of  instantaneous  visitation  from 
God  upon  blasphemers.  My  opinion  is  that  such  cases  occur  somewhere  every 
day,  but  for  various  reasons  they  are  not  reported. 

BLASPHEMERS  PUNISHED. 

In  Scotland  a  club  assembled  every  week  for  purposes  of  wickedness,  and 
there  was  a  competition  as  to  which  could  use  the  most  horrid  oath,  and  the  man 
who  succeeded  was  to  be  president  of  the  club.  The  competition  went  on.  A 
man  uttered  an  oath  which  confounded  all  his  comrades,  and  he  was  made 
president  of  the  club.  His  tongue  began  to  swell,  and  it  protruded  from  the 
mouth,  and  he  could  not  draw  it  in,  and  he  died,  and  the  physicians  said:'  "This 
as  the  strangest  thing  we  ever  saw;  we  never  saw  any  account  in  the  books  like 
unto  it;  we  can't  understand  it."     I  understand  it.     He  cursed  God,  and  died. 

At  Catskill,  N.  Y.,  a  group  of  men  stood  in  a  blacksmith's  shop  during  a 
violent  thunder-  storm.  There  came  a  crash  of  thunder  and  some  of  the  men 
trembled.  One  man  said:  "  Why,  I  don't  see  what  you  are  afraid  of.  I  am  not 
afraid  to  go  out  in  front  of  the  shop  and  defy  the  Almighty,     I  am  not  afraid  of 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


211 


lightning."  And  he  laid  a  wager  on  the  subject,  and  he  went  out,  and  he  shook 
his  fist  at  the  heavens,  crying:  "Strike,  if  you  dare  !"  and  instantly  he  fell  under 
a  bolt.     What  destroyed  him  ?     Any  mystery  about  it  ?     Oh,  no.     He  cursed  God, 

and  died. 

Oh,  my  brother,  God  will  not  allow  this  sin  to  go  unpunished.  There  are 
styles  of  writing  with  manifold  sheets,  so  that  a  man  writing  on  one  sheet  writes 
clear  through  ten,  fifteen  or  twenty  sheets,  and  so  every  profanity  we  utter  goes 


inpiiimpiii 


s£*/ 


THE   STORM    CHII.D   SCREAMING   AI^ONG   THE   BEACH. 

right  down  through  the  leaves  of  God's  book  of  remembrance.  It  is  no  excep- 
tional sin.  Do  you  think  you  could  count  the  profanities  of  last  week — the 
profanities  of  office,  store,  shop,  factory?  They  cursed  God,  they  cursed  His 
word,  they  cursed  His  only-begotten  Son. 

One  morning,  on  Fulton  street,  as  I  was  passing  along,  I  heard  a  man  swear 
by  the  name  of  Jesus.  My  hair  lifted.  My  blood  ran  cold.  My  breath  caught. 
My  foot  halted.  Do  you  not  suppose  that  God  is  aggravated?  Do  you  not 
suppose  that  God  knows  about  it  ?     Dionysius  used  to  have  a  cave  in  which  his 


212  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

culprits  were  incarcerated,  and  he  listened  at  the  top  of  that  cave,  and  he  could 
hear  every  groan;  he  could  hear  every  sigh,  and  he  could  hear  every  whisper  of 
those  who  were  imprisoned.  He  was  a  tyrant.  God  is  not  a  tyrant;  but  He 
bends  over  this  world  and  He  hears  everything— every  voice  of  praise,  every  voice 
of  imprecation.  He  hears  it  all.  The  oaths  seem  to  die  on  the  air,  but  they  have 
eternal  echo.     They  come  back  from  the  ages  to  come. 

Listen  !  Listen  !  "  All  blasphemers  shall  have  their  place  in  the  lake  which 
burneth  with  fire  and  brimstone,  which  is  the  second  death."  And  if,  according 
to  the  theory  of  some,  a  man  commits  in  the  next  world  the  sins  which  he 
committed  in  this  world — if  unpardoned,  unregenerated — think  of  a  man's  going 
on  cursing  in  the  name  of  God  to  all  eternity. 

GROWTH   OF  SWEARING. 

The  habit  grows.  You  start  with  a  small  oath,  you  will  come  to  the  large 
oath.  I  saw  a  man  die  with  an  oath  between  his  teeth.  Voltaire  only  gradually 
came  to  his  tremendous  imprecation;  but  the  habit  grew  on  him  until  in  the  last 
moment,  supposing  Christ  stood  at  the  bed,  he  exclaimed:  "Curse  that  wretch  ! 
Curse  that  wretch  !"  Oh,  my  brother,  you  begin  to  swear  and  there  is  nothing 
impossible  for  you  in  the  wrong  direction. 

Who  is  this  God  whose  name  you  are  using  in  swearing  ?  Who  is  He  ?  Is 
He  a  tyrant?  Has  He  pursued  you  all  your  life  long?  Has  He  starved  you, 
frozen  you,  tyrannized  over  you  ?  No.  He  has  loved  you;  He  has  sheltered  you; 
He  watched  you  last  night;  He  will  watch  you  to-night.  He  wants  to  love  you, 
wants  to  help  you,  wants  to  save  you,  wants  to  comfort  you.  He  was  your  father's 
God  and  your  mother's  God.  He  has  housed  them  from  the  blast,  and  He  wants 
to  shelter  you.  Will  you  spit  in  His  face  by  an  imprecation  ?  Will  you  ever 
thrust  Him  back  by  an  oath  ? 

Who  is  this  Jesus,  whose  name  I  heard  in  the  imprecation  ?  Has  He  pursued 
you  all  your  life  long  ?  What  vile  thing  has  He  done  to  you  that  you  should  so 
dishonor  His  name  ?  Why,  He  was  the  lamb  whose  blood  simmered  in  the  fires 
of  sacrifice  for  you.  He  is  the  brother  that  took  off"  His  crown  that  you  might  put 
it  on.  He  has  pursued  you  all  your  life  long  with  mercy.  He  wants  you  to  love 
Him — wants  you  to  serve  Him.  He  comes  with  streaming  eyes  and  broken  heart 
and  blistered  feet  to  save  you.  On  the  craft  of  our  doomed  humanity  He  pushed 
out  into  the  sea  to  take  you  off"  the  wreck  ! 

Where  is  the  hand  that  will  ever  be  lifted  in  imprecation  again  ?  Let  that 
hand,  now  blood-tipped,  be  lifted  that  I  may  see  it.  Not  one.  Where  is  the 
voice  that  will  ever  be  uttered  in  dishonoring  the  name  of  that  Christ  ?  Let  it 
speak  now.  Not  one.  Not  one.  Oh,  I  am  glad  to  know  that  all  these  vices  of 
the  community  and  these  crimes  of  our  nation  will  be  gone.     Society  is  going  to 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIF^). 


213 


be  bettered.  The  world  by  the 
power  of  Christ's  gospel  is  going  to 
be  saved,  and  this  crime,  this  in- 
iquity, and  all  the  other  iniquities 
will  vanish  before  the  rising  of  the 
sun  of  righteousness  upon 
the  nation. 

EMD  OF  SIN  AND  CRIME. 

There  was    one   day  in 
New  England  memorable  for 
storm    and    darkness.       I 
believe  I  never  saw  another 
such  evening.    The  clouds 
which  had  been  gath- 
ering all  day  unlim- 
bered  their  batteries. 
The    Housatonic, 
which  flows  quietly, 
save  as  the  paddles  of 
pleasure  parties  rat- 
tle the  oar  locks,  was 
lashed  into  foam,  and  the 
waves  hardly  knew  where 
to  lay  themselves. 

Oh  !  what  a  time  it 
was !  The  hills  jarred 
under  the  rumbling  of 
God's  chariots.  Blinding 
sheets  of  rain  drove  the 
cattle  to  the  bars,  or  beat 
against  the  window  pane 
as  though  to  dash  it  in. 
The  grain  fields  threw 
their  crowns  of  gold  at  the 
feet  of  the  storm  king. 
When  night  came  in  it 
was  a  double  night.  Its 
mantle  was  torn  with  the 
lightnings,    and    into    its 


214  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

locks  were  twisted  the  leaves  of  uprooted  oaks  and  the  shreads  of  canvas  torn 
from  the  masts  of  the  beached  shipping.  It  was  such  a  night  as  makes  you 
thank  God  for  shelter,  and  open  the  door  to  let  in  the  spaniel  howling  outside 
with  terror. 

We  went  to  sleep  under  the  full  blast  of  heaven's  great  orchestra,  the  forests 
with  uplifted  voices,  in  chorus  that  filled  the  mountains,  praising  the  L,ord.  We 
woke  not  until  the  fingers  of  the  sunny  morn  touched  our  eyelids.  We  looked  out 
the  window  and  the  Housatonic  slept  as  quiet  as  an  infant's  dream.  Pillars  of 
clouds  set  against  the  sky  looked  like  the  castles  of  the  blest  built  for  heavenly 
hierarchs  on  the  beach  of  the  azure  sea.  All  the  trees  sparkled  as  though  there 
had  been  some  great  grief  in  heaven,  and  each  leaf  had  been  God-appointed  to 
catch  an  angel's  tear.  It  seemed  as  if  our  Father  had  looked  upon  the  earth,  His 
■wayward  child,  and  stooped  to  her  tear-wet  cheek  and  kissed  it.  So  will  the 
darkness  of  sin  and  crime  leave  our  world  before  the  dawn  of  the  morning.  The 
light  shall  gild  the  city's  spire  and  strike  the  forests  of  Maine  and  the  masts  of 
Mobile  and  all  between.  And  one  end  resting  on  the  Atlantic  coast  and  the  other 
resting  on  the  Pacific  beach,  God  will  spring  a  great  rainbow  arch  of  peace,  in 
token  of  everlasting  covenant  that  the  world  shall  never  more  see  a  deluge  of 
crime. 

"But,"  says  some  one,  "preaching  against  the  evils  of  society  will  accom- 
plish nothing.  Do  you  not  see  that  the  evils  go  right  on  ?"  I  answer,  we  are  not 
at  all  discouraged. 

It  seemed  insignificant  for  Moses  to  stretch  his  hand  over  the  Red  Sea.  What 
power  could  that  have  over  the  waters?  But  the  east  wind  blew  all  night;  the 
waters  gathered  into  two  glittering  palisades  on  either  side.  The  billows  reared 
as  God's  hand  pulled  back  upon  their  crystal  bits.  Wheel  into  line,  O  Israel  ! 
March  !  March  !  Pearls  crash  under  the  feet.  The  shout  of  hosts  mounting  the 
beach  answers  the  shout  of  hosts  mid-sea,  until,  as  the  last  line  of  the  Israelites 
has  gained  the  beach,  the  shields  clang,  and  the  cymbals  clap,  and  as  the  waters 
whelm  the  pursuing  foe,  swift-fingered  winds  on  the  white  keys  of  the  foam  play 
the  grand  march  of  Israel  delivered,  and  the  awful  dirge  of  Egyptian  overthrow. 
So  we  go  forth;  and  stretchout  the  hand  of  prayer  and  Christian  effort  over  these 
dark,  boiling  waters  of  crime  and  sin.  Those  who  resist  and  deride  and  pursue  us 
will  fall  under  the  sea,  and  there  will  be  nothing  left  of  them  but  here  and  there, 
cast  high  and  dry  upon  the  beach,  the  splintered  wheel  of  a  chariot,  and,  thrust 
out  from  the  surf,  the  breathless  nostril  of  a  rideless  charger. 


^  IStnllxn^  St^r^ 


ATTILA,  THE  SCOURGE,  AND   NATIONS  THAT  HAVE  PERISHED. 

^ANY  commentators,  like  Patrick  and  I/Dwth,  Thomas  Scott, 
Matthew  Henty,  Albert  Barnes,  agree  in  saying  that  the  star 
Wormwood,  mentioned  in  Revelation,  was  Attila,  King  of 
the  Huns.  He  was  so  called  because  he  was  brilliant  as  a 
star,  and,  like  wormwood,  he  embittered  everj'thing  he  touched. 
We  have  studied  the  Star  of  Bethlehem,  and  the  Morning  Star 
of  the  Revelation,  and  the  Star  of  Peace,  but  my  present  sub- 
ject calls  us  to  gaze  at  the  star  Wormwood,  and  my  theme 
might  be  called  Brilliant  Bitterness. 

A  more  extraordinary  character  history  does  not  furnish  than 
this  man  thus  referred  to,  Attila,  the  King  of  the  Huns.  One  day 
a  wounded  heifer  came  limping  along  through  the  fields,  and  a  herds- 
man followed  its  bloody  track  on  the  grass  to  see  where  the  heifer  was 
wounded,  and  went  on  back  further  and  further,  until  he  came  to  a 
sword  fast  in  the  earth,  the  point  downward,  as  though  it  had 
dropped  from  the  heavens,  and  against  the  edges  of  this  sword  the 
heifer  had  been  cut.  The  herdsman  pulled  up  that  sword  and  pre- 
sented it  to  Attila.  Attila  said  that  sword  must  have  dropped  from 
the  heavens  from  the  grasp  of  the  god  Mars,  and  its  being  given  to  him  meant  that 
Attila  should  conquer  and  govern  the  whole  earth.  Other  mighty  men  have  been 
delighted  at  being  called  liberators,  or  the  merciful,  or  the  good,  but  Attila  called 
himself,  and  demanded  that  others  call  him,  the  Scourge  of  God.  At  the  head 
of  700,000  troops  mounted  on  Cappadocian  horses,  he  swept  everything  from  the 
Adriatic  to  the  Black  Sea.  He  put  his  iron  heel  on  Macedonia  and  Greece  and 
Thrace.  He  made  Milan,  and  Pavia,  and  Padua,  and  Verona  beg  for  mercy, 
which  he  bestowed  not.  The  Byzantine  castles,  to  meet  his  ruinous  levy,  put  up 
at  auction  massive  silver  tables  and  vases  of  solid  gold.  A  city  captured  by  him, 
the  inhabitants  were  brought  out  and  put  into  three  classes:  the  first  class,  those 
who  could  bear  arms,  who  must  immediately  enlist  under  Attila  or  be  butchered; 
the  second  class,  the  beautiful  women,  who  were  made  captives  to  the  Huns;  the 
third  class,  the  aged  men  and  women,  who  were  robbed  of  everything  and  let  go 
back  to  the  city  to  pay  heavy  tax. 

(215) 


2l6 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


ATT  I  LA'S  DEATH. 

It  was  a  common  saying  that  the  grass  never  grew  again  where  the  hoof  of 
Attila's  horse  had  trod.  His  armies  reddened  the  waters  of  the  Seine  and  the 
Moselle  and  the  Rhine  with  carnage,  and  fought  on  the  Catalonian  Plains  the 
fiercest  battle  since  the  world  stood — 300,000  dead  left  on  the  field  !  On  and  on, 
until  all  those  who  could  not  oppose  him  with  arms  lay  prostrate  on  their  faces  in 
prayer,  and,  a  cloud  of  dust  seen  in  the  distance,  a.  bishop  cried:    "  It  is  the  aid 


ATTILA,    KING    OF   THE   HUNS. 

of  God  !"  and  all  the  people  took  up  the  cry:  "It  is  the  aid  of  God  !"  As  the 
cloud  of  dust  was  blown  aside  the  banners  of  re-enforcing  armies  marched  in  to 
help  against  Attila,  the  Scourge  of  God.  The  most  unimportant  occurrences  he 
used  as  a  supernatural  resource,  and,  after  three  months  of  failure  to  capture  the 
City  of  Aquileia,  and  his  army  had  given  up  the  siege,  the  flight  of  a  stork  and 
her  young  from  the  tower  of  the  city  was  taken  by  him  as  a  sign  that  he  was  to 
capture  the  city,  and  his  army,  inspired  by  the  same  occurrence,  resumed  the  siege, 
and  took  the  walls  at  a  point  from  which  the  stork  had  emerged.     So  brilliant  was 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


217 


the  conqueror  in  attire  that  his  enemies  could  not  look  at  him,  but  shaded  their 
eyes  or  turned  their  heads. 

Slain  on  the  evening  of  his  marriage  by  his  bride,  Ildico,  who  was  hired  for 
the  assassination,  his  followers  bewailed  him  not  with  tears,  but  with  blood, 
cutting  themselves  with  knives  and  lances.  He  was  put  into  three  coffins — the 
first  of  iron,  the  second  of  silver,  and  the  third  of  gold.     He  was  buried  by  night, 


SIEGE  OF  AOUILEIA. 

and  into  his  grave  were  poured  the  most  valuable  coin  and  precious  stones, 
amounting  to  the  wealth  of  a  kingdom.  The  grave  diggers  and  all  those  who 
assisted  at  the  burial  were  massacred,  so  that  it  would  never  be  known  where  so 
much  wealth  was  entombed.  The  Roman  Empire  conquered  the  world,  but  Attila 
conquered  the  Roman  Empire.  He  was  right  in  calling  himself  a  scourge,  but 
instead  of  being  the  scourge  of  God  he  was  the  scourge  of  hell.  Because  of  his 
brilliance  and  bitterness  the  commentators  were  right  in  believing  him  to  be  the 
star  Wormwood.     As  the  regions  he  devastated  were  parts  most  opulent  with 


2i8  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

fountains  and  streams  and  rivers,  you  see  liow  graphic  is  this  reference  in  Revela- 
tion: "There  fell  a  great  star  from  heaven,  burning  as  it  were  a  lamp,  and  it  fell 
upon  the  third  part  of  the  rivers  and  upon  the  fountains  of  waters,  and  the  name 
of  the  star  is  called  Wormwood." 

Have  you  ever  thought  how  many  embittered  lives  there  are  all  about  us, 
misanthropic,  morbid,  acrid,  saturnine?  The  European  plant  from  which  worm- 
wood is  extracted,  artemisia  absinthium,  is  a  perennial  plant,  and  all  the  year 
round  it  is  ready  to  exude  its  oil.  And  in  many  human  lives  there  is  a  perennial 
distillation  of  acrid  experiences.  Yea,  there  are  some  whose  whole  work  is  to 
shed  a  baleful  influence  on  others.  There  are  Attilas  of  the  home,  or  Attilas  of 
the  social  circle,  or  Attilas  of  the  Church,  or  Attilas  of  the  State,  and  one-third 
of  the  waters  of  all  the  world,  if  not  two-thirds  the  waters,  are  poisoned  by  the 
felling  of  the  star  Wormwood.  It  is  not  complimentary  to  human  nature  that 
most  men,  as  soon  as  they  get  great  power,  become  overbearing.  The  more  power 
men  have  the  better,  if  their  power  be  used  for  good.  The  less  power  men  have 
the  better,  if  they  use  it  for  evil. 

DESTRUCTION  OF  GREAT  CITIES. 

Tyre — the  atmosphere  of  the  desert,  fragrant  with  spices,  coming  in  caravans 
to  her  fairs;  all  seas  cleft  into  foam  by  the  keels  of  her  laden  merchantmen;  her 
markets  rich  with  horses  and  camels  from  Togarmah;  her  bazaars  filled  with 
upholstery  from  Dedan,  with  emerald  and  coral  and  agate  from  Syria,  with  wines 
from  Helbon,  with  embroidered  work  from  Ashur  and  Chilmad.  Where  now  the 
gleam  of  her  towers,  where  the  roar  of  her  chariots,  where  the  masts  of  her  ships? 
Let  the  fishermen  who  dry  their  nets  where  once  she  stood,  let  the  sea  that 
rushes  upon  the  barrenness  where  once  she  challenged  the  admiration  of  all 
nations,  let  the  barbarians  who  set  their  rude  tents  where  once  her  palaces 
glittered,  answer  the  question.  She  was  a  star,  but  by  her  own  sin  turned  to 
wormwood  and  has  fallen. 

Hundred-gated  Thebes — for  all  time  to  be  the  study  of  the  antiquarian  and 
hieroglyphist;  her  stupendous  ruins  spread  over  twenty-seven  miles;  her  sculp- 
tures presenting  in  figures  of  warrior  and  chariot  the  victories  with  which  the  now 
forgotten  kings  of  Egypt  shook  the  nations;  her  obelisks  and  columns;  Carnac 
and  Luxor,  the  stupendous  temples  of  her  pride  !  Who  can  imagine  the  greatness 
of  Thebes  in  those  days  when  the  hippodrome  rang  with  her  sports,  and  foreign 
royalty  bowed  at  her  .shrines,  and  her  avenues  roared  with  the  wheels  of  proces- 
sions in  the  wake  of  returning  conquerors  ?  What  dashed  down  the  vision  of 
chariots  and  temples  and  thrones  ?  What  hands  pulled  upon  the  columns  of  her 
glory  ?  What  ruthlessness  defaced  her  sculptured  wall,  and  broke  obelisks,  and  left 
her  indescribable  temples  great  skeletons  of  granite  ?     What  spirit  of  destruction 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I,IFB.  21.9 

spread  the  lair  of  wild  beasts  in  her  royal  sepulchres,   and  taught  the   miser- 
able cottagers  of  to-day  to  build  huts  in  the  courts  of  her, temples,  and  sent 


ROMAN    CHARIOTEERS. 

desolation  and  ruin  skulking  behind  the  obelisks  and  dodging  among  the  sarco- 
phagi and  leaning  against  the  columns  and  stooping  under  the  arches  and 
weeping  in  the  waters  which  go  mournfully  by  as  though  they  were  carrying  the 


2  20 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


THH  GODDESS   OF  JUSTICE. 


tears  of  all  ages  ?  Let  the  mum- 
mies break  their  long  silence  and 
come  up  to  shiver  in  the  desolation, 
and  point  to  fallen  gates  and  shat- 
tered statues  and  defaced  sculpture, 
responding:  ' '  Thebes  built  not  one 
temple  to  God,  Thebes  hated  right- 
eousness and  loved  sin.  Thebes 
was  a  star,  but  she  turned  to  worm- 
wood and  has  fallen." 

WHY  BABYLON   FELL. 

Babylon,  with  her  250  towers 
and  her  brazen  gates  and  her  em- 
battled walls,  the  splendor  of  the 
earth  gathered  within  her  palaces, 
her  hanging  gardens  built  by  Neb- 
uchadnezzar to  please  his  bride, 
Amytis,  who  had  been  brought  up 
in  a  mountainous  country  and  could 
not  endure  the  flat  country  round 
Babylon  —  these  hanging  gardens 
built,  terrace  above  terrace,  till  at 
the  height  of  400  feet  there  were 
woods  waving  and  fountains  play- 
ing, the  verdure,  the  foliage,  the 
glory  looking  as  if  a  mountain  were 
on  the  wing.  On  the  tip-top  a  king 
walking  with  his  queen,  among 
statues  snowy  white,  looking  up  at 
birds  brought  from  distant  lands, 
and  drinking  out  of  tankards  of  solid 
gold  or  looking  off  over  rivers  and 
lakes  upon  nations  subdued  and 
tributary,  crying:  "  Is  not  this  great 
Babylon  which  I  have  built  ? ' ' 

What  battering  ram  smote  the 
walls?  What  plowshare  upturned 
the  gardens  ?  What  army  shattered 
the    brazen    gates?      What    long, 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  221 

fierce  blast  of  storm  put  out  this  light  which  illumined  the  world?  What 
crash  of  discord  drove  down  the  music  that  poured  from  palace  window  and 
garden  grove  and  called  the  banqueters  to  their  revel  and  the  dancers  to  their 
feet?  I  walk  upon  the  scene  of  desolation  to  find  an  answer  and  pick  up 
pieces  of  bitumen  and  brick  and  broken  pottery,  the  remains  of  Babylon,  and 
as  in  the  silence  of  the  night  I  hear  the  surging  of  that  billow  of  desolation 
which  rolls  over  the  scene,  I  hear  the  wild  weaves  saying:  "  Babylon  was  proud. 
Babylon  was  impure.  Babylon  was  a  star,  but  by  sin  she  turned  to  wormwood 
and  has  fallen." 

From  the  persecutions  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  the  Huguenots  in  other 
lands,  God  set  upon  these  shores  a  nation.  The  council  fires  of  the  aborigines 
went  out  in  the  greater  light  of  a  free  government.  The  sound  of  the  war-whoop 
was  exchanged  for  the  thousand  wheels  of  enterprise  and  progress.  The  mild 
winters,  the  fruitful  summers,  the  healthful  skies  charmed  from  other  lands  a  race 
of  hard)^  men  who  loved  God  and  wanted  to  be  free.  Before  the  woodman's  axe 
forests  fell  and  rose  again  into  ships'  masts  and  churches'  pillars.  Cities  on  the 
banks  of  lakes  begin  to  rival  cities  by  the  sea.  The  land  quakes  with  the  rush  of 
the  rail  car  and  the  waters  are  churned  white  with  the  steamer's  wheel.  Fabulous 
bushels  of  Western  wheat  meet  on  the  way  fabulous  tons  of  Eastern  coal.  Furs 
from  the  North  pass  on  the  rivers  fruits  from  the  South.  And  trading  in  the  same 
market  is  Maine  lumberman  and  South  Carolina  rice  merchant  and  Ohio  farmer 
and  Alaska  fur  dealer.  And  churches  and  schools  and  asylums  scatter  light  and 
love,  and  mercy,  and  salvation  upon  60,000,000  of  people. 

WHERE  THE  NATION'S  SAFETY  LIES. 

I  pray  that  our  nation  may  not  copy  the  crimes  of  the  nations  that  have 
perished,  and  our  cup  of  blessing  turn  to  wormwood  and  like  them  we  go  down. 
I  am  by  nature  and  by  grace  an  optimist,  and  I  expect  that  this  country  will  con- 
tinue to  advance  until  Christ  shall  come  again.  But  be  not  deceived  !  Our  only 
safety  is  in  righteousness  toward  God  and  justice  toward  man.  If  we  forget  the 
goodness  of  the  Lord  to  this  land;  if  the  political  corruption  which  has  poisoned 
the  fountains  of  public  virtue  and  beslimed  the  high  places  of  authority,  making 
free  government  at  times  a  hissing  and  a  by -word  in  all  the  earth;  if  the  drunken- 
ness and  licentiousness  that  stagger  and  blaspheme  in  the  streets  of  our  great  cities 
as  though  they  were  reaching  after  the  fame  of  a  Corinth  and  a  Sodom  are  not 
repented  of,  we  will  yet  see  the  smoke  of  our  nation's  ruin;  the  pillars  of  our 
national  and  State  capitols  will  fall  more  disastrously  than  when  Samson  pulled 
down  Dagon ;  and  future  historians  will  record  upon  the  page  bedewed  with  gen- 
erous tears  the  story  that  the  free  nation  of  the  West  arose  in  splendor  which  made 
the  world  stare.     It  had  magnificent  possibilities.     It  forgot  God.     It  hated  justice. 


222 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


It  hugged  its  crime.  It  halted  on  its  high  march.  It  reeled  under  the  blow  of 
calamity.  It  fell.  And  as  it  was  going  down,  all  the  despotism  of  earth  from  the 
top  of  bloody  thrones  began  to  shout,  "  Aha,  so  would  we  have  it,"  while  strug- 
gling and  oppressed  people  looked  out  from  dungeon  bars  with  tears  and  groans 
and  cries  of  untold  agony,  the  scorn  of  those  and  the  woe  of  these  uniting  in  the 
exclamation,  "  lyook  yonder!  there  fell  a  great  .star  from  heaven,  burning  as  it 
were  a  lamp,  and  it  fell  upon  the  third  part  of  the  rivers  and  upon  the  fountains 
of  waters;  and  the  name  of  the  star  is  called  Wormwood  !" 


^j^niTCfxx^^^ 


A  DIABOLICAL  SIN  THAT  SETS  ONE-HALF  THE  WORLD 
AGAINST  THE  OTHER. 

'here  is  an  old  sin,  haggard,  furious,  monstrous  and  diaboli- 
cal, that  has  for  ages  walked  and  crawled  the  earth.  It 
combines  all  that  is  obnoxious  in  the  races,  human,  quadru- 
pedal, ornithological,  reptilian  and  insectile,  horned,  tusked, 
hoofed,  fanged,  stinged;  the  eye  of  a  basilisk,  the  tooth  of 
an  adder,  the  jaws  of  a  crocodile,  the  crushing  folds  of  an 
anaconda,  the  slyness  of  a  scorpion,  the  tongue  of  a  cobra, 
and  the  coil  of  the  worm  that  never  dies.  It  is  in  every  community,  in  every 
church,  in  every  legislative  hall,  in  every  monetary  institution,  in  every  drawing- 
room  levee,  in  every  literary  and  professional  circle.  It  whispers,  it  hisses,  it  lies, 
it  debauches,  it  blasphemes,  it  damns. 

It  is  grief  at  the  superiority  of  others;  their  superiority  in  talent,  or  wealth, 
or  beauty,  or  elegance,  or  virtue,  or  social,  or  professional,  or  political  recognition. 
It  is  the  shadow  of  other  people's  success.  It  is  the  shiver  in  our  pocket-book 
because  it  is  not  so  fat  as  some  one  else's  pocket-book.  It  is  the  twinge  in  our 
tongue  because  it  is  not  so  eloquent  as  some  one  else's  tongue.  It  is  the  flutter  in 
our  robes  because  they  are  not  so  lustrous  as  some  one  else's  robes.  It  is  the  earth- 
quake under  our  house  because  it  is  not  so  many  feet  front  deep  as  our  neighbor's 
house.  It  is  the  thunder  of  other  people's  popularity  Souring  the  milk  of  our 
kindness.  It  is  the  father  and  mother  of  one-half  of  the  discontent  and  outrages, 
and  detractions,  and  bankruptcies,  and  crimes,  and  woes  of  the  human  race. 

THE  FIRST  CASE  OF  JEALOUSY. 

It  was  antediluvian  as  much  as  it  is  postdiluvian.  It  put  a  rough  stick  in  the 
liands  of  the  first  boy  that  was  ever  born,  and  said  to  him:  "Now,  Cain,  when 
Abel  is  looking  the  other  way,  crush  in  his  skull;  for  his  sacrifice  has  been 
accepted  and  yours  rejected."  And  Cain  picked  up  the  stick  as  though  just  to 
walk  with  it,  and  while  Abel  was  watching  some  birds  in  the  tree- top,  or  gazing 
at  some  water- fall,  down  came  the  blow  of  the  first  assassination,  which  has  had  its 
echo  in  all  the  fratricides,  matricides,  uxoricides,  homicides,  infanticides  and  regi- 
cides of  all  ages  and  all  nations.  This  passion  of  jealousy  so  disturbed  Caligula  at 
the  prominence  of  some  of  the  men  of  his  time,  that  he  cut  a  much-admired  curl 

f223) 


224 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


CAIN   AND   ABEL,    ROCKED   IN   THE   FIRST   CRADLE. 


from  the  brow  of  Cincin- 
iiatus,  and  took  the  embroi- 
dered collar  from  the  neck 
of  Torquatus,  and  had  Pto- 
lemaeus  killed  because  of 
his  purple  robe,  which 
attracted  too  much  atten- 
tion. After  Columbus  had 
placed  America  as  a  gem 
in  the  Spanish  crown,  jeal- 
ousy set  on  the  Spanish 
courtiers  to  depreciate  his 
achievement,  and  aroused 
animosities  till  the  great 
discoverer  had  his  heart 
broken.  Urged  on  by  this 
bad  passion,  Dionysius 
flayed  Plato  because  he  was 
wiser  than  himself,  and 
Philoxenus  because  his 
music  was  too  popular. 
Jealousy  made  Korah  lie 
about  Moses  and  Succoth 
depreciate  Gideon, 

Jealousy  made   the 

trouble  between  Jacob  and 

Esau.     That  hurled  Joseph 

into  the  pit.     That  struck 

the   twenty-three    fatal 

wounds  into  Julius  Caesar. 

That  banished  Aristides. 

That  fired  Antony  against 

Cicero.     Tiberius  exiled  an 

architect    because     of    the 

fame  he  got  for  a  beautiful 

porch,  and  slew  a  poet 

for   his   fine  tragedy. 

That  set  Saul  in  a  rage 

against  David.     How 

graphically  the   Bible 


15 


(225) 


226 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


THK   rRODIGAI.   SON. 


puts  it  when  it  says:  "Saul  eyed 
David."  It  seems  to  take  posses- 
sion of  both  eyes  and  makes  them 
flash  and  burn  like  two  port-holes 
of  hell.  "Saul  eyed  David."  That 
is,  he  looked  at  him  as  much  as  to 
say:  "You  little  upstart,  how  dare 
you  attempt  anything  great.  I  will 
grind  you  under  my  heel.  I  will 
exterminate  you,  I  will,  you  miser- 
able homunculus.  Crouch,  crawl, 
slink  into  that  rat-hole.  I  will 
teach  those  women  to  sing  some 
other  song,  instead  of  "Saul  has 
slain  his  thousands,  but  David  his 
tens  of  thousands. ' '  When  Voltaire 
heard  that  Frederick  the  Great  was 
forgetting  him  and  putting  his 
literary  admiration  on  Bacaulard 
d'Arnaud,  the  old  infidel  leaped 
out  of  his  bed  and  danced  the  floor 
in  a  maniacal  rage,  and  ordered 
his  swiftest  horses  hooked  up  to 
carry-  him  to  the  Prussian  palace. 

That  despicable  passion  of 
jealousy  led  Napoleon  I.  to  leave 
in  his  will  a  bequest  of  5000  francs 
to  the  ruffian  who  shot  at  Welling- 
ton when  the  victor  of  Waterloo  was 
passing  through  Paris.  That  sta- 
tioned the  grouty  elder  brother  at 
the  back  door  of  the  homestead 
when  the  prodigal  son  returned, 
and  threw  a  chill  on  the  family 
reunion  while  that  elder  brother 
complained,  saying:  "Who  ever 
heard  of  giving  roast  veal  to  such 
a  profligate?"  Ay,  that  passion 
rose  up  and  under  the  darkest 
cloud  that  ever  shadowed  the  earth, 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


227 


and  amid  the  loudest  thunder  that  ever  shook  the  mountains,  and  amid  the 
wildest  flash  of  lightning  that  ever  blinded  or  stunned  the  nations,  hung  up  on 
two  pieces  of  rough  lumber  back  of  Jerusalem  the  kindest,  purest,  lovingest 
nature  that  Heaven  could  delegate,  and  stopped  not  until  there  was  no  power 
left  in  hammer,  or  bramble,  or  javelin  to  hurt  the  dead  Son  of  God. 


DEATH    BKD    OK    COPICKNICUS 


A  PASSION  THAT  ANNOYS  THE  WORLD. 

That  passion  of  jealousy,  livid,  hungr}-,  unbalked,  rages  on,  and  it  now  pierces 
the  earth  like  a  fiery  diameter  and  encircles  it  like  a  fiery  circumference.  It  wants 
both  hemispheres.  It  wants  the  heavens.  It  would,  if  it  could,  capture  the  palace 
of  God,  and  bethrone  Jehovah,  and  chain  the  Almighty  in  eternal  exile,  and  after 


228  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

the  demolition  of  the  universe  would  cry:  "  Satisfied  at  last,  here  I  am,  alone,  the 
undisputed  and  everlasting  I,  me,  mine,  myself!"  That  passion  keeps  all  Europe 
perturbed.  Nations  jealous  of  Germany,  of  England,  of  Russia,  and  those  jealous 
of  each  other,  and  all  of  them  jealous  of  America. 

Go  into  all  occupations  and  professions,  and  if  you  want  to  know  how  much 
jealousy  is  yet  to  be  extirpated,  ask  master  builders  what  they  think  of  each 
others'  houses,  and  merchants  what  their  opinion  is  of  merchants  in  the  same  line 
of  business  in  the  same  street,  and  ask  doctors  what  they  think  of  doctors,  and 
lawyers  what  they  think  of  lawyers,  and  ministers  what  they  think  of  ministers, 
and  artists  what  they  think  of  artists.  As  long  as  men  and  women  in  any  depart- 
ment keep  down  and  have  a  hard  struggle  they  will  be  faintly  praised  and  the 
remark  will  be:  "Oh,  yes;  he  is  a  good,  clever  sort  of  a  fellow. "  "  She  is  rather, 
yes,  somewhat,  quite — well,  I  may  say,  tolerably  nice  kind  of  a  woman."  But 
let  him  or  her  get  a  little  too  high  and  off  goes  the  aspiring  head  by  social  or  com- 
mercial decapitation. 

Remember  that  envy  dwells  more  on  small  defects  of  character  than  on  great 
forces;  makes  more  of  the  fact  that  Domitian  amused  himself  by  transfixing  flies 
with  his  penknife  than  of  his  great  conquests;  more  of  the  fact  that  Handel  was  a 
glutton  than  that  he  created  imperishable  oratorios;  more  of  Coleridge's  opium 
habit  than  of  his  writing  "  Christabel "  and  "The  Ancient  Mariner;"  more  of  the 
fact  that  Addison  drank  too  much  than  of  the  fact  that  he  was  the  editor  of  the 
"  Spectator;"  jealousy  that  derided  and  abused  Copernicus  even  to  his  death-bed; 
more  of  a  man's  peccadilloes  than  of  his  mighty  energies;  more  of  his  defeats  than 
of  his  victories. 

JEALOUSY  AMONG  DOCTORS. 

lyook  at  the  sacred  and  heaven-descended  science  of  healing,  and  then  see  Dr. 
Mackenzie,  the  English  surgeon,  who  prolonged  the  life  of  the  Crown  Prince  of 
Germany  until  he  became  Emperor.  Yet  so  great  were  the  medical  jealousies  that 
for  a  time  Dr.  Mackenzie  dared  not  walk  the  streets  of  Berlin.  He  was  under 
military  guard.  The  medical  students  of  Germany  could  hardly  keep  th^ir  hands 
from  him.  The  old  doctors  of  Germany  were  writhing  with  indignation.  The 
fact  is  that  in  prolonging  Frederick's  life  for  several  months  Dr.  Mackenzie  saved 
the  peace  of  Europe.  There  was  not  an  intelligent  man  on  either  side  of  the 
ocean  that  did  not  fear  for  the  result  if  the  throne  passed  immediately  from  wise 
and  good  old  Emperor  William  to  his  inexperienced  grandson.  But  when,  under 
the  medical  treatment  of  Dr.  Mackenzie,  the  Crown  Prince  Frederick  took  the 
throne,  a  wave  of  satisfaction  and  confidence  rolled  over  Christendom.  But  what 
shall  the  world  do  with  the  doctor  who  prolonged  his  life?  "  Oh,"  cried  out  the 
medical  jealousies  of  Europe,  "  destroy  him;  of  course,  destroy  him." 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  229 

What  a  brutal  scene  of  jealousy  we  had  in  this  country  when  President 
Garfield  lay  dying.  There  were  faithful  physicians  that  sacrificed  their  other 
practice  and  sacrificed  their  health  for  all  time  in  fidelity  to  that  death-bed. 
Doctors  Bliss  and  Hamilton  and  Agnew  went  through  anxieties  and  toils  and 
fatigues  such  as  none  but  God  could  appreciate.  Nothing  pleased  many  of  the 
medical  profession.  The  doctors  in  charge  did  nothing  right.  We  who  did  not 
see  the  case  knew  better  than  those  who  agonized  over  it  in  the  sick-room  for 
many  weeks.  I,  who  never  had  anything  worse  than  a  run-round  on  my  thumb, 
which  seemed  to  me  at  the  time  was  worthy  all  the  attention  of  the  entire  medical 
fraternity,  had  my  own  ideas  as  to  how  the  President  ought  to  be  treated.  And 
in  proportion  as  physicians  and  laymen  were  ignorant  of  the  case,  they  were  sure 
the  treatment  practiced  was  a  mistake.  And  when  in  post-mortem  the  bullet 
dropped  out  of  a  different  part  of  the  body  from  that  in  which  it  was  supposed  to 
have  been  lodged,  about  200,000  peopled  shouted:  "  I  told  you  so  !"  "  There  !  I 
knew  it  all  the  time."  There  are  some  doctors  who  would  rather  have  the  patient 
die  under  the  treatment  of  their  own  schools  than  have  them  get  well  under  some 
other  pathy. 

Yea,  look  at  the  clerical  profession.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  in  matters  of 
jealousy  it  is  no  better  than  other  professions.  There  are  now  in  all  denomina- 
tions a  great  many  young  clerg>'men  who  have  a  faculty  for  superior  usefulness. 
But  they  are  kept  down  and  kept  back  and  crippled  by  older  ministers  who  look 
askance  at  these  rising  evangelists.  They  are  snubbed.  They  are  jostled.  They 
are  patronizingly  advised.  It  is  suggested  to  them  that  they  had  better  know  their 
place.  If  here  and  there  one  with  more  nerve  and  brain,  and  consecration,  and 
divine  force  go  past  the  seniors  who  want  to  keep  the  chief  places,  the  young  are 
advised  in  the  words  of  Scripture:  "  Tarry  at  Jericho  till  their  beards  are  grown." 
They  are  charged  with  sensationalism.  They  are  compared  to  rockets  that  go  up 
in  a  blaze  and  come  down  sticks,  and  the  brevity  of  their  career  is  jubilantly 
prophesied.  If  it  be  a  denomination  with  bishops,  a  bishop  is  implored  to  sit 
down  heavily  on  the  man  who  will  not  be  moulded;  or  if  a  denomination  without 
bishops,  some  of  the  older  men  with  nothing  more  than  their  own  natural 
heaviness  and  theological  avoirdupois  are  advised  to  flatten  out  the  innovator.  In 
conferences  and  presbyteries,  and  associations  and  conventions  there  is  often  seen 
the  most  damnable  jealousy.  Such  ecclesiastical  tyrants  would  not  admit  that 
jeolousy  had  any  possession  of  them,  and  they  take  on  a  heavenly  air,  and  talk 
sweet  oil  and  sugar  plums,  and  balm  of  a  thousand  flowers,  and  roll  up  their 
eyes  with  an  air  of  unctuous  sanctity  when  they  simply  mean  the  destruction  of 
those  over  whom  they  pray  and  snuffle.  There  are  cases  where  ministers  of 
religion  are  derelict  and  criminal,  and  they  must  be  put  out. 


230 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


LIKE  CUTTING  A  ROASTED  OX. 


But  in  tlie  majority  of  cases  that  I  have  witnessed  in  ecclesiastical  trials,  there 
is  a  jealous  attempt  to  keep  men  from  surpassing  their  theological  fellows,  and  as 
at  the  presidential  elections  in  country  places  the  people  have  a  barbecue,  which 
is  a  roasted  ox  round  which  the  people  dance  with  knives,  cutting  off  a  slice  here, 


JEALOUS  LOVERS — THE  DUEL.— /vv;;/  a  Painting  by  N.  Sicani. 

and  pulling  out  a  rib  there,  and  sawing  oif  a  beefsteak  yonder,  and  having  a  high 
time;  so  most  of  the  denominations  of  Christians  keep  on  hand  a  barbecue  in 
which  some  minister  is  roasted  w'hile  the  Church  courts  dance  around  with  their 
sharp  knives  of  attack,  and  one  takes  an  ear,  another  a  hand,  another  a  foot,  and 
it  is  hard  to  tell  whether  the  ecclesiastical  plaintiffs  of  this  world  or  the  demons  of 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LITE.  231 

the  nether  world  most  enjoy  it.  Albert  Barnes,  than  whom  no  man  has  accom- 
plished more  good  in  the  last  thousand  years,  was  decreed  to  sit  silent  for  a  year 
in  the  pew  of  his  own  church  while  some  one  else  occupied  his  pulpit,  the  pre- 
tended offence  being  that  he  did  not  believe  in  a  limited  atonement,  but  the  real 
offence  the  fact  that  all  the  men  who  tried  him  put  together  would  not  equal  one 
Albert  Barnes. 

Yes;  amid  all  professions  and  business,  and  occupations,  and  trades,  and 
amid  all  circles  needs  to  be  heard  what  God  says  in  regard  to  envy  and  jealous}-, 
which,  though  not  exactly  the  same,  are  twins:  "  Envy  is  the  rottenness  of  the 
bone;"  "Where  envy  and  vStrife  is,  there  is  confusion  and  every  evil  work;" 
"Jealousy  is  the  rage  of  man."  That  which  has  downed  kings  and  emperors, 
and  apostles,  and  reformers,  and  ministers  of  religion,  and  thousands  of  good  men 
and  women,  is  too  mighty  for  you  to  contend  against  unaided.  The  evil  has  so 
man}^  roots  of  such  infinite  convolution  that  nothing  but  the  energy  of  omnipo- 
tence can  pull  it  out. 

Awa}^  with  the  accursed,  stenchful,  blackening,  damning  crime  of  jealousy. 
Allow  it  to  stay  and  it  will  eat  up  and  carry  off  all  the  religion  3'ou  can  pack  into 
your  soul  for  the  next  half-century.  It  will  do  you  more  harm  than  it  does  any 
one  it  leads  you  to  assail.  It  will  delude  you  with  the  idea  that  you  can  build 
yourself  up  by  pulling  somebody  else  down.  You  will  make  more  out  of  the 
success  of  others  than  out  of  their  misfortunes.  Speak  well  of  every  bod)'.  Stab 
no  man  in  the  back.  Be  a  honey-bee  rather  than  a  spider;  be  a  dove  rather  than 
a  buzzard. 

Surely  this  world  is  large  enough  for  30U  and  all  j'our  rivals.  God  has  given 
you  a  work  to  do.  Go  ahead  and  do  it.  Mind  3-0U  own  business.  In  all  circles, 
in  all  businesses,  in  all  professions  there  is  room  for  straightforward  successes. 
Jealousy  entertained  will  not  only  bedwarf  5'our  soul,  but  it  will  flatten  your  skull, 
bemean  your  eye,  put  pinchedness  of  look  about  5'our  nostril,  give  a  bad  curl  to 
the  lip,  and  expel  from  your  face  the  divine  image  in  which  5'ou  were  created. 
When  yovi  hear  a  man  or  woman  abused,  drive  in  on  the  defendant's  side.  Watch 
for  excellences  in  others  rather  than  for  defects,  morning-glories  instead  of 
night-shade.  If  some  one  is  more  beautiful  than  5-011,  thank  God  that  5-0U 
have  not  so  many  perils  of  vanity  to  contend  with.  If  some  one  has  more 
wealth  than  you,  thank  God  that  you  have  not  so  great  stewardship  to 
answer  for.  If  some  one  is  higher  up  in  social  position,  thank  God  that 
those  who  are  down  need  not  fear  a  fall.  If  some  one  gets  higher  office  in 
Church  or  State  than  you,  thank  God  there  are  not  so  many  to  wish  for  the 
hastening  on  of  your  obsequies. 

The  Duke  of  Dantzig,  iu  luxurious  apartments,  was  visited  b}*  a  plain 
friend,  and   to  keep  his   friend   from    jealousy   the  Duke  said:    "You  can   have 


232 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


all  I  have  if  you  will  stand  twenty  paces  off  and  let  me  shoot  at  >ou  one 
hundred  times. ' ' 

"No,  no,"   said  his  friend. 

' '  Well, ' '  said  the  Duke,  ' '  to  gain  all  my  honors  I  faced  on  the  battlefield 
more  than  a  thousand  gunshots  fired  not  more  than  ten  paces  off. ' ' 

A  minister  of  small  congregation  complained  to  a  minister  of  large  congrega- 
tion about  the  sparseness  of  his  attendants.      "  Ah, ' '  said  the  one  of  large  audience, 


HARD  TIMES. — Fvoui  the  Paifitiiiq;  by  Hubeti  Herkomcr. 

*'  my  son,  you  will  find  in  the  day  of  judgment  that  you  had  quite  enough  people 
for  whom  to  be  held  accountable." 


A  SUBSTITUTE. 


Substitute  for  jealousy  an  elevating  emulation.  Seeing  others  good,  let  us  try 
to  be  better.  Seeing  others  industrious,  let  us  work  more  hours.  Seeing  others 
benevolent,  let  us  resolve  on  giving  larger  percentage  of  our  means  for  charity. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  233 

May  God  put  congratulations  for  others  into  our  right  hand  and  cheers  on  our  lips 
for  those  who  do  brave  and  useful  things.  Life  is  short  at  the  longest ;  let  it  all 
be  filled  up  with  helpfulness  for  others,  work  and  sympathy  for  each  other's 
misfortunes,  and  our  arms  be  full  of  white  mantles  to  cover  up  the  mistakes  and 
failures  of  others.  If  an  evil  report  about  some  one  come  to  us,  let  us  put  on  the 
most  favorable  construction,  as  the  Rhone  enters  Lake  Leman  foul  and  comes  out 
crystalline.  Do  not  build  so  much  on  the  transitory  differences  of  this  world,  for 
soon  it  will  make  no  difference  to  us  whether  we  had  ten  million  dollars  or  ten 
cents,  and  the  ashes  into  which  the  tongue  of  Demosthenes  dissolved  are  just  like 
the  ashes  into  which  the  tongue  of  the  veriest  stammerer  went. 

If  you  are  assailed  by  jealousy,  make  no  answer.  Take  it  as  a  compliment, 
for  people  are  never  jealous  of  a  failure.  Until  your  work  is  done,  your  are  invul- 
nerable. Remember  how  our  Lord  behaved  under  such  exasperations.  Did  they 
not  try  to  catch  Him  in  His  word  ?  Did  they  not  call  Him  the  victim  of  intoxi- 
cants ?  Did  they  not  misinterpret  Him  from  the  winter  of  the  year  i  to  the  spring 
of  the  year  33 — that  is,  from  His  first  infantile  cry  to  the  last  groan  of  His  assassi- 
nation ?  Yet  He  answered  not  a  word.  But  so  far  from  demolishing  either  His 
mission  or  His  good  name,  after  near  nineteen  centuries  He  outranks  everything 
under  the  skies,  and  is  second  to  none  above  them,  and  the  archangel  makes  salaam 
at  His  footstool.  Christ's  bloody  antagonists  thought  that  they  had  finished  Him 
w^hen  they  wrote  over  the  cross  His  accusation  in  three  languages — Hebrew,  Greek 
and  Latin — not  realizing  that  they  were  by  that  act  introducing  Him  to  all  nations, 
since  Hebrew  is  the  holiest  language,  and  Greek  the  wisest  of  tongues,  and  Latin 
the  widest  spoken. 

You  are  not  the  first  man  who  had  his  faults  looked  at  through  a  microscope 
and  his  virtues  through  the  wrong  end  of  a  telescope.  Pharaoh  had  the  chief 
butler  and  baker  endungeoned,  and  tradition  says  that  all  the  butler  had  done  was 
to  allow  a  fly  in  the  king's  cup,  and  all  the  baker  had  done  was  to  leave  a  gravel 
in  the  king's  bread.  The  world  has  the  habit  of  making  a  great  ado  about  what 
you  do  wrong  and  forgetting  to  say  anything  about  what  you  do  right,  but  the 
same  God  will  take  care  of  you  who  provided  for  Merlin,  the  Christian  martyr, 
when  hidden  from  his  pursuers  in  a  hay-mow  in  Paris,  a  hen  came  and  laid  an 
egg  close  by  him  every  morning,  thus  keeping  him  from  starvation.  Blessed  are 
they  that  are  persecuted,  although  persecution  is  a  severe  cataplasm.  Ointment 
may  smart  the  wound  before  healing  it.  What  a  soft  pillow  to  die  on  if  when  we 
leave  the  world  we  can  feel  that,  though  a  thousand  people  may  have  wronged  us, 
we  have  wronged  no  one;  or  having  made  envious  and  jealous  attack  on  others, 
we  have  repented  of  the  sin  and  as  far  as  possible  made  reparation. 


®lnj   SouL 


ITS  VALUE  COMPARED  WITH   WORLDLY  POSSESSIONS. 

HAVE  to  say  that  the  world  is  a  very  grand  property.  Its 
flowers  are  God's  thoughts  in  bloom.  Its  rocks  are  God's 
thoughts  in  stone.  Its  dewdrops  are  God's  thoughts  in  pearl. 
J/^M1BHI^*J^  This  world  is  God's  child — a  wayward  child,  indeed;  it  has 
^/r'^fi8Pc!lS«JI  wandered  off  through  the  heavens.  But  nearlj'  2000  5'ears 
ago,  one  Christmas  night,  God  sent  out  a  sister  world  to  call 
that  wanderer  back,  and  it  hung  over  Bethlehem  only  long 
enough  to  get  the  promise  of  the  wanderer's  return;  and  now 
that  lo.st  world,  with  soft  feet  of  light,  comes  treading  back  through  the  heavens. 
The  hills,  how  beautiful  they  billow  up  the  edge  of  the  wave  white  with  the  foam 
of  crocuses  !  How  beautiful  the  rainbow,  the  arched  bridge  on  which  heaven  and 
earth  come  and  talk  to  each  other  in  tears,  after  the  storm  is  over  !  How  nimble 
the  feet  of  the  lamp-lighters  that  in  a  few  minutes  set  all  the  dome  of  the  night 
ablaze  with  brackets  of  fire  !  How  bright  the  oar  of  the  saffron  cloud  that  rows 
across  the  deep  sea  of  heaven  !  How  beautiful  the  spring,  with  bridal  blossoms 
in  her  hair  !  I  wonder  who  it  is  that  beats  time  on  a  June  morning  for  the  bird 
orchestra.  How  gently  the  harebell  tolls  its  fragrance  on  the  air  !  There  may  be 
grander  worlds,  swarthier  worlds,  larger  w^orlds  than  this;  but  I  think  that  this  is 
a  most  exquisite  world — a  mignonette  on  the  bosom  of  immensity  ! 

"Oh,"  you  say,  "take  my  soul  !  give  me  that  world  !  I  am  willing  to  take 
it  in  exchange.  I  am  ready  now  for  the  bargain.  It  is  so  beautiful  a  world,  so 
sweet  a  world,  so  grand  a  world  !" 

Geologists  tell  us  that  it  is  already  on  fire  ;  that  the  heart  of  the  world  is  one 
great  living  coal;  that  it  is  just  like  a  ship  on  fire  at  sea,  the  flames  not  bursting 
out  because  the  hatches  are  kept  down.  And  yet  you  propose  to  palm  off  on  me, 
in  return  for  my  soul,  a  world  for  which,  in  the  first  place,  you  give  no  title,  and, 
in  the  second  place,  for  w^hich  you  can  give  no  insurance.  "Oh,"  you  say,  "the 
water  of  the  oceans  will  wash  over  all  the  land  and  put  out  the  fire."  Oh,  no. 
There  are  inflammable  elements  in  the  water,  hydrogen  and  oxygen.  Call  off  the 
hydrogen  and  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  Oceans  would  blaze  like  heaps  of  shav- 
ings. You  want  me  to  take  this  world,  for  which  you  can  give  no  possible 
insurance. 

(234^ 


nil 


iimm^^^^mi^^^'mm^mm'm 


THE   LITTLK    ORPHAN'S   DREAM. 


(235) 


236  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Astronomers  have  swept  their  telescopes  through  the  sky,  and  have  found  out 
that  there  have  been  thirteen  worlds,  in  the  last  two  centuries,  that  have  disap- 
peared. At  first  they  looked  just  like  other  worlds.  Then  they  got  deeply  red 
— they  were  on  fire.  Then  they  got  ashen,  showing  they  were  burned  down. 
Then  they  disappeared,  showing  that  even  the  ashes  were  scattered.  And  if 
the  geologist  be  right  in  his  prophecy,  then  our  world  is  to  go  on  in  the  same  way. 
And  yet  you  want  me  to  exchange  my  soul  for  it.  Ah,  no  ;  it  is  a  world  that  is 
burning  now.  Suppose  you  brought  an  insurance  agent  to  look  at  your  property 
for  the  purpose  of  giving  you  a  policy  upon  it,  and  while  he  stood  in  front  of  the 
house  he  should  say  :  "That  house  is  on  fire  now  in  the  basement,"  you  could 
not  get  any  insurance  upon  it.  Yet  you  talk  about  this  world  as  though  it  were  a 
safe  investment,  as  though  you  could  get  some  insurance  upon  it,  when  down  in 
the  basement  it  is  on  fire. 

I  may  also  add,  that  this  world  is  a  property  with  which  everybody  who  has 
taken  it  as  a  possession  has  had  trouble.  Now,  I  know  a  large  reach  of  land  that 
is  not  built  on.  I  ask  what  is  the  matter,  and  they  reply  that  everybody  who  has 
had  anything  to  do  wath  that  property  got  into  trouble  about  it.  It  is  just  so  with 
this  world  ;  everybody  that  has  had  anything  to  do  with  it,  as  a  possession,  has 
been  in  perplexity.  How  was  it  with  Eord  Byron  ?  Did  he  not  sell  his  immortal 
soul  for  the  purpose  of  getting  the  world  ?  Was  he  satisfied  with  the  possession  ? 
Alas!  alas!  the  poem  graphically  describes  his  case  when  it  says  : 

Drank  every  cup  of  jo}', 

Heard  every  trtimp  of  fame  ; 

Drank  early,  deeply  drank, 

Drank  draughts  wliich  common  millions  miglit  have  quenched, 

Then  died  of  thirst  because  there  was  no  more  to  drink. 

HOW  TO    MEASURE  A  MAN'S  PROPERTY. 

Oh,  yes,  he  had  trouble  wuth  it;  and  so  did  Napoleon.  After  conquering 
nations  by  the  force  of  his  sword,  he  lies  down  to  die,  his  entire  possession  the 
military  boots  that  he  insisted  on  having  upon  his  feet  while  he  was  dying.  Or 
the  even  greater  sorrow  perhaps,  of  having  to  retreat  from  Moscow,  his  army 
defeated,  his  hopes  shattered,  and  his  pride  of  achievement  humbled.  So  it  has 
been  with  men  who  had  better  ambition.  Thackeray,  one  of  the  most  genial  and 
lovable  souls,  after  he  had  won  the  applause  of  all  intelligent  lands  through  his 
wonderful  genius,  sits  down  in  a  restaurant  in  Paris,  looks  to  the  other  end  of  the 
room  and  wonders  whose  that  forlorn  and  wretched  face  is;  rising  up  after  awhile, 
he  finds  that  it  is  Thackeray  in  the  mirror.  Oh,  yes,  this  world  is  a  cheat.  Talk- 
ing about  a  man  gaining  the  world!  Who  ever  gained  half  of  the  world?  Who 
ever  owned  a  hemisphere  ?     Who  ever  gained  a  continent  ?     Who  ever  owned 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


237 


Asia?  Who  ever  gained  a  city  ?  Talk  about  gaining  the  world!  No  man  ever 
gained  it,  or  the  hundred- thousandth  part  of  it.  You  are  demanding  that  I  sell 
my  soul,  not  for  the  world,  but  for  a  fragment  of  it.  Here  is  a  man  who  has  had 
a  large  estate  for  forty  or  fifty  years.  He  lies  down  to  die.  You  say,  ' '  That  man 
is  worth  millions  and  millions  of  dollars  !"  Is  he  ?  You  call  up  a  surveyor,  with 
his  compass  and  chains,  and  you  say,  "There  is  a  property  extending  three  miles 
in  one  direction,  and  three  miles  in  another  direction." 


napoleon's  retreat  from  MOSCOW .  —  Pa  I  >!  frd  by  Adolphc  Yvon. 

Is  that  the  way  to  measure  that  man's  property  ?  No  !  You  do  not  want  any 
surveyor,  with  his  compass  and  chains.  That  is  not  the  way  you  want  to  measure 
that  man's  property  now.  It  is  an  undertaker  that  you  need,  who  will  come  and 
put  his  finger  in  his  vest  pocket,  and  take  out  a  tape  line,  and  he  will  measure  five 
feet  nine  inches  one  way,  and  two  and  a  half  feet  the  other  wa}-.  That  is  the 
man's  property.  Oh,  no;  I  forgot;  not  so  much  as  that,  for  he  does  not  own  even 
the  place  in  which  he  lies  in  the  cemetery.     The  deed  to  that  belongs  to  the 


2  38  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

execuiors  and  the  heirs.  Oh,  what  a  property  you  propose  to  give  me  for  my  soul  ! 
If  you  sell  a  bill  of  goods  you  go  into  the  counting  room  and  say  to  your  partner: 
' '  Do  you  think  that  man  is  good  for  this  bill  ?  Can  he  give  proper  security  ?  Will 
he  meet  this  payment  ?" 

Now,  when  you  are  offered  this  world  as  a  possession,  I  want  you  to  test  the 
matter.  I  do  not  want  you  to  go  into  this  bargain  blindly.  I  want  you  to  ask 
about  the  title,  about  the  insurance,  about  whether  men  have  ever  had  any  trouble 
with  it,  about  whether  you  can  keep  it,  about  whether  you  can  get  all,  or  the  ten- 
thousandth,  or  one  hundred-thousandth  part  of  it. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  other  property — the  soul.  We  cannot  make  a  bargain 
without  seeing  the  comparative  value.  Tlie  soul.  How  shall  I  estimate  the  value 
of  it?  Well,  by  its  exquisite  organization.  "It  is  the  most  wonderful  piece  of 
mechanism  ever  put  together.  Machinery  is  of  value  in  proportion  as  it  is  mighty 
and  silent  at  the  same  time.  You  look  at  the  engine  and  the  machinery  in  the 
Philadelphia  Mint,  and,  as  you  see  it  performing  its  wonderful  work,  j^ou  will  be 
surprised  to  find  how  silently  it  goes.  Machinery  that  roars  and  tears  soon 
destroys  itself;  but  silent  machinery  is  often  most  effective.  Now,  so  it  is  with 
the  soul  of  man,  with  all  its  tremendous  faculties — it  moves  in  silence.  Judg- 
ment, without  any  racket,  lifting  its  scales;  memory,  without  any  noise,  bringing 
down  all  its  treasures;  conscience  taking  its  judgment-seat  without  any  excite- 
ment; the  understanding  and  the  will  all  doing  their  work.  Velocity,  majesty, 
might;  but  silence — silence.  You  listen  at  the  door  of  your  heart.  You  can 
hear  no  sound.  The  soul  is  all  quiet.  It  is  so  delicate  an  instrument  that  no 
human  hand  can  touch  it.  You  break  a  bone,  and  with  splinters  and  bandages 
the  surgeon  sets  it;  the  eye  becomes  inflamed,  the  apothecary's  wash  cools  it;  but 
a  soul  ofi"  the  track,  unbalanced,  no  human  power  can  readjust  it.  With  one 
sweep  of  its  wing  it  circles  the  universe,  and  overv^aults  the  throne  of  God.  Why, 
in  the  hour  of  death  the  soul  is  so  mighty  it  throws  aside  the  body  as  though  it 
were  a  toy.  It  drives  back  medical  skill  as  impotent.  It  breaks  through  the 
circle  of  loved  ones  who  stand  around  the  dying  couch.  With  one  leap,  it 
springs  beyond  star  and  moon  and  sun,  and  chasms  of  immensity.  Oh,  it  is  a 
soul  superior  to  all  material  things  !  No  fires  can  consume  it;  no  floods  can 
drown  it;  no  rocks  can  crush  it;  no  walls  can  impede  it;  no  time  can  exhaust  it. 
It  wants  no  bridge  on  which  to  cross  a  chasm.  It  wants  no  plummet  with 
which  to  sound  a  depth.  A  soul  so  mighty,  so  swift,  so  silent,  must  it  not  be  a 
priceless  soul? 

THE  VALUE  AND   MEASURE  OF  A  SOUL. 

I  calculate  the  value  of  a  soul,  also,  by  its  capacity  for  happiness.  How 
much  joy  it  can  get  in  this  world  out  of  friendships,  out  of  books,  out  of  clouds, 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


239 


out  of  the  sea,  out  of  flowers,  out  of 
ten  thousand  things;  and  yet  all  the 
joy  it  has  here  does  not  test  its  ca- 
pacity. You  are  in  a  concert  before 
the  curtain  rises,  and  you  hear  the 
instruments  preparing — the  sharp  snap 
of  the  broken  string,  the  scrapings  of 
the  bow  across  the  viol.  "There  is 
no  music  in  that, ' '  you  say.  It  is  only 
getting  ready  for  the  music.  And  all 
the  enjoyment  of  the  soul  in  this 
world,  the  enjoyment  we  think  is  real 
enjoyment,  is  only  preparative;  it  is 
only  the  first  stages  of  the  thing;  it  is 
only  the  entrance,  the  beginning  of 
that  which  shall  be  the  orchestral  har- 
monies and  splendors  of  the  redeemed. 
You  cannot  test  the  full  power  of 
the  soul  for  happiness  in  this  world. 
How  much  power  the  soul  has  here 
to  find  enjoyment  in  friendship !  but, 
oh,  the  grander  friendships  for  the  soul 
in  the  skies !  How  sweet  the  flowers 
here !  but  how  much  sweeter  they  will 
be  there !  I  do  not  think  that  when 
flowers  die  on  earth  they  die  forever. 
I  think  that  the  fragrance  of  the  flow- 
ers is  the  spirit  being  wafted  awa}-  into 
glory.  God  says  there  are  palm  trees 
in  heaven  and  fruits  in  heaven.  If 
so,  why  not  the  spirits  of  the  dead 
flowers?  In  the  sunny  valleys  of 
heaven  shall  not  the  marigold  creep  ? 
On  the  hills  of  heaven  will  not  the 
amaranth  bloom  ?  On  the  amethj^s- 
tine  walls  of  heaven  will  not  the  jas- 
mine climb?  "My  beloved  is  come 
down  in  his  garden  to  gather  lilies." 
No  flowers  in  heaven?  Where,  then, 
do  they  get  their  garlands  for  the 
brows  of  the  righteous? 


"THE   RKAPER   AND   THE    FLOWERS 


240 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


Christ  is  glorious  to  our  souls  now,  but  how  much  grander  our  appreciation 
after  a  while  !  A  conqueror  comes  back  after  the  battle.  He  has  been  fighting 
for  us.  He  comes  upon  the  platform.  He  has  one  arm  in  a  sling,  and  the  other 
arm  holds  a  crutch.  As  he  mounts  the  platform,  oh,  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
audience!  They  say:  "  That  man  fought  for  us  and  imperiled  his  life  for  us;" 
and  how  wild  the  huzza  that  follows  huzza  !  When  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  shall 
at  last  stand  out  before  the  multitudes  of  the  redeemed  of  heaven,  and  we  meet 
Him  face  to  face,  and  feel  that  He  was  wounded  in  the  head,  and  wounded  in  the 
hands,  and  wounded  in  the  feet,  and  wounded  in  the  side  for  us,  methinks  we  will 
be  overwhelmed.  We  will  sit  some  time  gazing  in  silence,  until  some  leader 
amidst  the  white-robed  choir  shall  lift  the  baton  of  light,  and  give  the  signal  that 
it  is  time  to  wake  the  song  of  jubilee,  and  all  heaven  will  then  break  forth  into: 
"  Hosanna !  hosanna  !  hosanna  !     Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that  was  slain." 

^..^~,  5.>,  -       -  I  calculate  further  the  value  of 

^^^^  the  soul  by  the  price  that  has  been 

paid  for  it.  In  St.  Petersburg  there 
is  a  diamond  that  the  government 
paid  $200,000  for.  "Well,"  you 
say,  "it  must  have  been  ver>'  val- 
uable, or  the  government  would 
not  have  paid  $200,000  for  it."  I 
want  to  see  what  mj'  soul  is  worth, 
and  what  your  soul  is  worth,  by 
~  seeing  what  has  been  paid  for  it. 
For  that  immortal  soul,  the  richest 
blood  that  was  ever  shed,  the  deep- 
est groan  that  was  ever  uttered,  all 
the  griefs  of  earth  compressed  into 
one  tear,  all  the  sufferings  of  earth  gathered  into  one  rapier  of  pain  and  struck 
through  His  holy  heart.     Does  it  not  imply  tremendous  value  ? 

I  argue  also  the  value  of  the  soul  from  the  home  that  has  been  fitted  up  for  it 
in  the  future.  One  would  have  thought  a  street  of  adamant  would  have  done. 
No;  it  is  a  street  of  gold.  One  would  have  thought  that  a  wall  of  granite  would 
have  done.  No;  it  is  the  flame  of  sardonyx  mingling  with  the  green  of  emerald. 
One  would  have  thought  that  an  occasional  doxology  would  have  done.  Nd;  it 
is  a  perpetual  song.  If  the  ages  of  heaven  marched  in  a  straight  line,  some  day 
the  last  regiment,  perhaps,  might  pass  out  of  sight;  but,  no,  the  ages  of  heaven 
do  not  march  in  a  straight  line,  but  in  a  circle  around  about  the  throne  of  God; 
forever,  forever,  tramp,  tramp  !  A  soul  so  bought,  so  equipped,  so  provided  for» 
must  be  a  priceless  soul,  a  majestic  soul,  a  tremendous  soul. 


THE   CROWN   OF  THORNS. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


241 


THE  STORY  OF  AN   HEROIC  SAILOR. 


I  was  reading  of  a  sailor  who  had  just  got  ashore,  and  was  telHng  about  his 
last  experience  at  sea.     He  said: 

"  The  last  time  I  crossed  the  ocean  we   had  a  terrific  time.      After  we  had 


16 


THE   BRIDE'S   NEW   HOME. 


242 


THK  PATHWAY  OF  IvIFE. 


been  out  three  or  four  days  the  machinery  got  disarranged  and  the  steam  began  to 
escape,  and  the  captain,  gathering  the  people  and  the  crew  on  deck,  said:  '  Unless 
some  one  shall  go  down  and  shut  off  that  steam  and  arrange  that  machinery  at 
the  peril  of  his  life,  we  must  all  be  destroyed.'  He  was  not  willing  to  go  down 
himself  No  one  seemed  willing  to  go.  The  passengers  gathered  at  one  end  of 
the  steamer,  waiting  for  their  fate.  The  captain  said:  '  I  give  you  a  last  warning. 
If  there  is  no  one  here  willing  to  imperil  his  life  and  go  down  and  fix  that 
machinery,  we  must  all  be  lost.'  A  plain  sailor  said:  'I'll  go,  sir,'  and  he 
wrapped  himself  in  a  coarse  piece  of  canvas  and  went  down,  and  was  gone 
but  a  few  moments  when  the  escaping  steam  stopped,  and  the  machinery  was 
corrected.  The  captain  cried  out  to  the  passengers:  '  All  saved  !  Let  us  go 
down  below  and  see  what  has  become  of  the  poor  fellow.'  They  went  down. 
There  he  lay  dead." 

Vicarious  suffering  !  Died  for  all  !  The  time  came  when  our  whole  race 
must  die  unless  some  one  should  endure  torture  and  sorrow  and  shame.  Who 
shall  come  to  the  rescue  ?  Shall  it  be  one  of  the  seraphim  ?  Not  one.  Shall  it 
be  one  of  the  cherubim  ?  Not  one.  Shall  it  be  an  inhabitant  of  some  pure  and 
unfallen  world?  Not  one.  Then  Christ  said:  "  Lo  !  I  come  to  do  Thy  will, 
O  God."  Oh,  the  love  !  Oh,  the  endurance  !  Oh,  the  horrors  of  the  sacrifice  ! 
Shall  not  our  souls  go  out  toward  Him,  saying:  "  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  take  my  souL 
Thou  art  worthy  to  have  it.     Thou  hast  died  to  save  it." 


^^ni:(^ixjcx&tn^ 


THE  FEAR  OF  PUNISHMENT,  AND  THE  RESULT  OF 
CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION. 

SOIyAR  eclipse  was  prophesied  to  take  place  about  the 
time  of  the  destruction  of  ancient  Jerusalem,  Josephus, 
the  historian,  says  that  the  prophecy  was  literally  ful- 
filled, and  about  that  time  there  were  strange  appear- 
ances in  the  heavens.  The  sun  was  not  destroyed, 
but  for  a  little  while  hidden. 

Christianity  is  the  rising  sun  of  our  time,  and  men 
have  tried  with  the  uprolling  vapors  of  skepticism  and  the  smoke  of  their  blas- 
phemy to  turn  the  sun  into  darkness.  Suppose  the  archangels  of  malice  and 
horror  should  be  let  loose  a  little  while  and  be  allowed  to  extinguish  and  destroy 
the  sun  in  the  natural  heavens.  They  would  take  the  oceans  from  other  worlds 
and  pour  them  on  this  luminary  of  the  planetary  system,  and  the  waters  go 
hissing  down  amid  the  ravines  and  the  caverns,  and  there  is  explosion  after 
explosion,  until  there  are  only  a  few  peaks  of  fire  left  in  the  sun,  and  these  are 
cooling  down  and  going  out  until  the  vast  continents  of  flame  are  reduced  to  a 
small  acreage  of  fire,  and  that  whitens  and  cools  off  until  there  are  only  a  few 
coals  left,  and  these  are  whitening  and  going  out  until  there  is  not  a  spark  left  in 
all  ihz  mountains  of  ashes  and  the  valleys  of  ashes  and  the  chasms  of  ashes.  An 
extinguis'ied  sun.  A  dead  sun.  A  buried  sun.  Let  all  worlds  wail  at  the 
stupendous  obsequies. 

Of  covirse,  this  withdrawal  of  the  solar  light  and  heat  throws  our  earth  into  a 
universal  chill,  and  the  Tropics  become  the  Temperate,  and  the  Temperate  becomes 
the  Arctic,  and  there  are  frozen  rivers  and  frozen  lakes  and  frozen  oceans.  From 
Arctic  and  Antarctic  regions  the  inhabitants  gather  in  toward  the  centre  and  find 
the  equator  as  the  poles.  The  slain  forests  are  piled  up  into  a  great  bonfire,  and 
around  them  gather  the  shivering  villages  and  cities.  The  wealth  of  the  coal 
mines  is  hastily  poured  into  the  furnaces  and  stirred  into  rage  of  combustion,  but 
soon  the  bonfires  begin  to  lower,  and  the  furnaces  begin  to  go  out,  and  the  nations 
begin  to  die.  Cotopaxi,  Vesuvius,  Etna,  Stromboli,  Califomian  geysers  cease  to 
smoke,  and  the  ice  of  hailstorms  remains  unmelted  in  their  crater.  All  the 
flowers  have  breathed  their  last  breath.  vShips  with  sailors  frozen  at  the  mast,  and 
helmsmen   frozen  at  the  wheel,  and  passengers  frozen  in  the  cabin;    all  nations 

(243) 


244      ,  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

dying,  first  at  the  north  and  then  at  the  south.  Child  frosted  and  dead  in  the 
cradle.  Octogenarian  frosted  and  dead  at  the  hearth.  Workmen  with  frozen 
hand  on  the  hammer  and  frozen  foot  on  the  shuttle.  Winter  from  sea  to  sea. 
All-congealing  winter.  Perpetual  winter.  Globe  of  frigidity.  Hemisphere 
shackled  to  hemisphere  by  chains  of  ice.  Universal  Nova  Zembla.  You  might 
fly  as  high  as  Icarus,  and  there  the  chill  would  be  as  great ;  or  as  low  as  Orpheus 
descended,  and  j-et  not  penetrate  beyond  the  universal  congelation.  The  earth 
and  ice-floe  grinding  against  other  ice-floes.  The  archangels  of  malice  and  horror 
have  done  their  work,  and  now  they  may  take  their  thrones  of  glacier  and  look 
down  upon  the  ruin  they  have  wrought. 

What  the  destruction  of  the  sun  in  the  natural  heavens  would  be  to  our 
phj'sical  earth  the  destruction  of  Christianity  would  be  to  the  moral  world — the 
sun  turned  into  darkness.  Infidelity  in  our  time  is  considered  a  great  joke. 
There  are  people  who  rejoice  to  hear  Christianity  caricatured,  and  to  hear  Christ 
assailed  with  quibble  and  quirk  and  misrepresentation  and  badinage  and  harle- 
quinade. 

I  propose  here  to  take  infidelity  and  atheism  out  of  the  realm  of  jocularity 
into  one  of  tragedy,  and  show  you  what  they  mean,  and  what,  if  they  are  success- 
ful, they  will  accomplish.  There  are  those  in  all  our  communities  who  would  like 
to  see  the  Christian  religion  overthrown,  and  who  say  the  world  would  be  better 
without  it.  I  want  to  show  3'ou  what  is  the  end  of  this  road,  and  what  is  the 
terminus  of  this  crusade,  and  what  this  world  will  be  when  atheism  and  infidelity 
have  triumphed  over  it,  if  they  can.     I  say,  if  they  can.     I  reiterate  it,  if  they  can. 

In  the  first  place,  it  will  be  the  complete  and  unutterable  degradation  of 
w^omanhood,  converting  women  into  slaves  or  creating  in  her  the  fury  of  a 
Clytemnestra.  1  will  prove  it  by  facts  and  arguments  which  no  honest  man  will 
dispute.  In  all  communities  and  cities  and  States  and  nations,  where  the  Christian 
religion  has  been  dominant  woman's  condition  has  been  ameliorated  and  improved, 
and  she  is  deferred  to  and  honored  in  a  thousand  things,  and  ever}-  gentleman 
takes  off"  his  hat  before  her.  If  your  associations  have  been  good,  you  know  that 
the  name  of  wife,  mother,  daughter,  suggests  gracious  surroundings.  You  know 
there  are  no  better  schools  and  seminaries  in  Brooklyn  or  in  any  cit}'  of  this 
country  than  the  schools  and  seminaries  for  our  3'oung  ladies.  You  know  that 
while  woman  may  suffer  injustice  in  England  and  the  United  States,  she  has  more 
of  her  rights  in  Christendom  than  she  has  an3'where  else. 

Now,  compare  this  with  woman's  condition  in  lands  where  Christianity  has 
made  little  or  no  advance — in  China,  in  Barbary,  in  Borneo,  in  Tartary,  in  Egypt, 
in  llindostan.  The  Burmese  sell  their  wives  and  daughters  as  so  many  sheep. 
The  Hindoo  Bible  makes  it  disgraceful  and  an  outrage  for  a  woman  to  listen  to 
music,  or  look  out  of  the  window  in  the  absence  of  her  husband,  and  gives  as  a 


(245) 


246  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

lawful  ground  for  divorce  a  woman's  beginning  to  eat  before  her  husband  has 
finished  his  meal.  What  mean  those  white  bundles  on  the  ponds  and  rivers  in 
China  in  the  morning  ?  Infanticide  following  infanticide.  Female  children 
destroyed  simply  because  they  are  female.  Woman  harnessed  to  a  plow  as  an  ox. 
Woman  veiled  and  barricaded,  and  in  all  styles  of  cruel  seclusion.  Her  birth  a 
misfortune.  Her  life  a  torture.  Her  death  a  horror.  The  missionary  of  the 
cross  to-day  in  heathen  lands  preaches  generally  to  two  groups — a  group  of  men, 
who  do  as  they  please  and  sit  where  they  please;  the  other  group — women,  hidden 
and  carefully  secluded  in  a  side  apartment,  where  they  may  hear  the  voice  of  the 
preacher,  but  may  not  be  seen.  No  refinement.  No  liberty.  No  hope  for  this 
life.  No  hope  for  the  life  to  come.  Ringed  hose.  Cramped  foot.  Disfigured 
face.  Embruted  soul.  Now  compare  those  two  conditions.  How  far  toward  this 
latter  condition  that  I  speak  of  would  woman  go  if  Christian  influences  were  with- 
drawn and  Christianity  were  destroyed  ?  It  is  only  a  question  of  dynamics.  If 
an  object  be  lifted  to  a  certain  point  and  not  fastened  there,  and  the  lifting  power 
be  withdrawn,  how  long  before  that  object  will  fall  down  to  the  point  from  which 
it  started?  It  will  fall  down,  and  it  will  go  still  further  than  the  point  from  which 
it  started.  Christianity  has  lifted  woman  up  from  the  very  depths  of  degradation 
almost  to  the  skies.  If  that  lifting  power  be  withdrawn,  she  falls  clear  back  to 
the  depth  from  which  she  was  resurrected,  not  going  anj^  lower  because  there  is 
no  lower  depth.  And  yet,  notwith.standing  the  fact  that  the  only  salvation  of 
woman  from  degradation  and  woe  is  the  Christian  religion,  and  the  only  influence 
that  has  ever  lifted  her  in  the  social  scale  is  Christianity — I  have  read  that  there 
are  women  who  reject  Christianity,  I  make  no  remark  in  regard  to  those  persons. 
I  make  no  remark  in  regard  to  them.     In  the  silence  of  your  ow^n  .soul  make  your 

observations. 

THE  FEAR  OF  PUNISHMENT. 

If  infidelity  triumph  and  Christianity  be  overthrown,  it  means  the  demorali- 
zation of  society.  The  one  idea  in  the  Bible  that  atheists  and  infidels  most  hate, 
is  the  idea  of  retribution.  Take  awaj^  the  idea  of  retribution  and  punishment 
from  society,  and  it  will  begin  very  soon  to  disintegrate;  and  take  awa\'  from  the 
minds  of  men  the  fear  of  hell,  and  there  are  a  great  many  of  them  who  would 
very  soon  turn  this  world  into  a  hell.  The  majority  of  those  who  are  indignant 
against  the  Bible  because  of  the  idea  of  punishment  are  men  whose  lives  are  bad 
or  whose  hearts  are  impure,  and  who  hate  the  Bible  because  of  the  idea  of  future 
punishment  for  the  same  reason  that  criminals  hate  the  penitentiary.  Oh,  I  have 
heard  this  brave  talk  about  people  fearing  nothing  of  the  consequences  of  sin  in 
the  next  world,  and  I  have  made  up  my  mind  it  is  merely  a  coward's  whistling 
to  keep  his  courage  up,  I  have  seen  men  flaiuit  their  immoralities  in  the  face  of 
the  community,  and  I  have  heard  them  defy  the  judgment-day  and  scoff"  at   the 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  247 

idea  of  any  future  onscqueuce  of  their  sin;  but  when  they  came  to  die  they  slirieked 
until  you  could  hear  them  for  nearly  two  blocks,  and  in  the  summer  night  the  neigh- 
bors got  up  to  put  the  windows  down  because  they  could  not  endure  the  horror. 


THE   FIRST   BORN. 


I  would  not  want  to  see  a  rail  train  with  five  hundred  Christian  people  on 
board  go  down  through  a  drawbridge  into  a  watery  grave,       I  would  not  want  to 


>4S 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


see  five  hundred  Christian  people  go  into  such  disaster,  but  I  tell  you  plainly  that 
I  could  more  easily  see  that  than  I  could  for  any  protracted  time  stand  and  see  an 
infidel  die,  though  his  pillow  were  of  eider-down  and  under  a  canopy  of  vermilion. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  brace  up  my  nerves  for  such  a  spectacle.  There  is  some- 
thing at  such  a  time  so  indescribable  in  the  countenance.     I  just  looked  in  upon  it 


YOUTHS   TO    FORTUNE,    BUT   TO    FAME   UNKNOWN. 


for  a  minute  or  two,  but  the  clutch  of  his  fist  was  so  diabolic,  and  the  strength  of 
voice  was  so  unnatural,  T  could  not  endure  it.  "  There  is  no  hell,  there  is  no  hell, 
there  is  no  hell  !  "  the  man  had  said  for  sixt}^  years;  but  that  night,  when  I  looked 
in  the  dying  room  of  my  infidel  neighbor,  there  was  something  on  his  countenance 
which  seemed  to  say:   "  There  is,  there  is,  there  is,  there  is  !  " 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  "  249 

The  mightiest  restraints  to-day  against  theft,  immorality,  against  Hbertinism, 
against  crime  of  all  sorts — the  mightiest  restraints  are  the  retributions  of  eternity. 
Men  know  that  they  can  escape  the  law,  but  down  in  the  offender's  soul  there  is 
the  realization  of  the  fact  that  they  cannot  escape  God.  He  stands  at  the  end  of 
the  road  of  profligacy,  and  He  will  not  clear  the  guilty.  Take  all  idea  of  retribu- 
tion and  punishment  out  of  the  hearts  and  minds  of  men,  and  it  would  not  be 
long  before  Brooklyn  and  New  York,  and  Boston,  and  Charleston,  and  Chicago 
became  Sodoms.  The  only  restraints  against  the  evil  passions  of  the  world  to-day 
are  Bible  restraints. 

AS  THE  INFIDELS  WOULD   HAVE  IT. 

Suppose  now  these  generals  of  atheism  and  infidelity  got  the  victory,  and 
suppose  they  marshaled  a  great  army  made  up  of  the  majority  of  the  world. 
They  are  in  companies,  in  regiments,  in  brigades — the  whole  army.  Forward, 
march,  ye  hosts  of  infidels  and  atheists,  banners  flying  before,  banners  flying 
behind,  banners  inscribed  with  the  words:  "  No  God  !  No  Christ !  No  punish- 
ment !  No  restraints  !  Down  with  the  Bible  !  Do  as  you  please  !  ' '  The  sun 
turned  into  darkness. 

Forward,  march  !  ye  great  army  of  infidels  and  atheists.  And  first  of  all  you 
will  attack  the  churches.  Away  with  those  houses  of  worship  !  They  have  been 
standing  there  so  long  deluding  the  people  with  consolation  in  their  bereavements 
and  sorrows.  All  those  churches  ought  to  be  extirpated;  they  have  done  so  much 
to  relieve  the  lost  and  bring  home  the  wandering,  and  they  have  so  long  held  up 
the  idea  of  eternal  rest  after  the  paroxysm  of  this  life  is  over.  Turn  the  St.  Peters, 
and  St.  Pauls,  and  the  temples,  and  tabernacles  into  club  houses.  Away  with 
those  churches ! 

Forward,  march  !  ye  great  army  of  infidels  and  atheists,  and  next  of  all  they 
scatter  the  Sabbath-schools — the  Sabbath-schools  filled  wnth  bright-eyed,  bright- 
cheeked  little  ones,  who  are  singing  songs  on  Sunday  afternoon,  and  getting 
instruction  when  they  ought  to  be  on  the  street  corners  playing  marbles,  or  swear- 
ing on  the  commons.  Away  with  them  !  Forward,  march  !  ye  great  army  of 
infidels  and  atheists,  and  next  of  all  they  will  attack  Christian  asylums — the  insti- 
tutions of  mercy  supported  by  Christian  philanthropies.  Never  mind  the  blind 
eyes  and  the  deaf  ears  and  the  crippled  limbs  and  the  weakened  intellects.  Let 
paralyzed  old  age  pick  up  its  own  food,  and  orphans  fight  their  own  way,  and  the 
half  reformed  go  back  to  their  evil  habits.  Forward,  march  !  3^e  great  army  of 
infidels  and  atheists,  and  with  your  battle-axe  hew  down  the  cross  and  split  up  the 
manger  of  Bethlehem. 

On,  ye  great  army  of  infidels  and  atheists,  and  now  they  come  to  the  grave- 
yards and  the  cemeteries  of  the  earth.     Pull  down  the  sculpture  above  Greenwood's 


250 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


gate,  for  it  means  the  resurrection.  Tear  away  at  the  entrance  of  Laurel  Hill  the 
fi^^ure  of  Old  Mortality  and  the  chisel.  On,  ye  great  army  of  infidels  and  atheists, 
into  the  graveyards  and  cemeteries;  and  where  you  see  "Asleep  in  Jesus,"  cut 
it  away,  and  where  you  find  a  marble  story  of  heaven,  blast  it;  and  where  you 
find  over  a  little  child's  grave,  "  Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto  me,"  substitute 
the  words  "Delusion"  and  "Sham;"  and  where  you  find  an  angel  in  marble 
strike  off"  the  wing;  and  when  you  come  to  a  family  vault,  chisel  on  the  door, 
"  Dead  once,  dead  forever." 

But  on,  ye  great  army  of  infidels  and  atheists,  on  !  They  will  attempt  to 
scale  heaven.  There  are  heights  to  be  taken.  Pile  hill  on  hill  and  Pelion  upon 
Ossa,  and  then  they  hoist  the  ladders  against  the  walls  of  heaven.     On  and  on, 

until  they 
blow  up  the 
foundations  of 
jasper  and  the 
gates  of  pearl. 
They  charge 
up  the  steep. 
Now  they  aim 
for  the  throne 
«>r  Him  who 
1 !  ves  forever 
.1  nd  ever . 
'I'liey  would 
I  ike  down 
from  their 
liigh  place  the 
Father,  the 
Son,  the  Holy  Ghost, 
the  throne  !"  they  say.  Down  forever  !  Down  out  of  sight  !  He  is  not  God. 
He  has  no  right  to  sit  there.     Down  with  him  !     Down  with  Christ !" 


the;  deluge. 
Down  wdth  them  !"  they  say.      "  Down  with  Him  from 


A  NEFARIOUS   PLOT. 

A  world  without  a  head,  a  universe  without  a  king.  Orphan  constellations. 
Fatherless  galaxies.  Anarchy  supreme.  A  dethroned  Jehovah.  An  assassinated 
God.  Patricide,  regicide,  Deicide.  That  is  what  they  mean.  That  is  what  they 
will  have,  if  they  can,  if  they  can,  if  they  can.  Civilization  hurled  back  into 
semi-barbarism,  and  semi-barbarism  driven  back  into  Hottentot  savagery.  The 
wheel  of  progress  turned  the  other  way,  and  turned  toward  the  Dark  Ages.  The 
clock  of  the  centuries  put  back  2000  years.     Go  back,  you  Sandwich  Islands, 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


251 


from  your  schools  and  from  your  colleges  and  from  your  reformed  condition  to 
what  you  were  in  1820,  when  the  missionaries  first  came.  Call  home  the  500 
missionaries  from  India  and  overthrow  their  2000  schools,  where  they  are  trying 
to  educate  the  heathen,  and  scatter  the  140,000  little  children  that  they  have 
gathered  out  of  barbarism  into  civilization.     Obliterate  all  the  work  of  Dr.  DufF 


GRIEF. 

in  India,  of  David  Abeel  in  China,  of  Dr.  King  in  Greece,  of  Judson  in  Burmah, 
of  David  Brainard  amid  the  American  aborigines,  and  send  home  the  3000  mis- 
sionaries of  the  cross  who  are  toiling  in  foreign  lands,  toiling  for  Christ's  sake, 
toiling  themselves  into  the  grave.  Tell  these  3000  men  of  God  that  they  are  of 
no  use.  Send  home  the  medical  missionaries  who  are  doctoring  the  bodies  as  well 
as  the  souls  of  the  dying  nations.     Go  home,  London  Missionar>^  Society.     Go 


252  THE  PATHWAY  OF  IvlFH. 

home,  American  Board  of  Foreign  Missions.  Go  home,  ye  Moravians,  and  relin- 
quish back  into  darkness,  and  squalor,  and  filth,  and  death  the  nations  whom  ye 
have  begun  to  lift. 

Oh,  my  friends,  there  has  never  been  such  a  nefarious  plot  on  earth  as  that 
which  infidelity  and  atheism  have  planned.  We  were  shocked  a  few  years  ago 
because  of  the  attempt  to  blow  up  the  Parliament  Houses  in  London;  but  if 
infidelity  and  atheism  succeed  in  their  attempt,  they  will  dynamite  the  world. 
Let  them  have  their  full  way,  and  this  world  will  be  a  habitation  of  three  rooms — 
a  habitation  with  just  three  rooms;  the  one  a  mad-house,  another  a  lazaretto,  the 
other  a  pandemonium.  These  infidel  bands  of  music  have  only  just  begun  their 
concert  —  yea,  they  have  only  been  stringing  their  instruments.  I  here  put 
before  you  their  whole  programme,  from  beginning  unto  close.  In  the  theatre  the 
tragedy  comes  first  and  the  farce  afterward,  but  in  this  infidel  drama  of  death  the 
farce  comes  first  and  the  tragedy  afterward.  And  in  the  former,  atheists  and 
infidels  laugh  and  mock,  but  in  the  latter,  God  himself  will  laugh  and  mock.  He 
says  so.      "I  will  laugh  at  their  calamity  and  mock  when  their  fear  cometh." 

From  such  a  chasm  of  individual,  national,  world-wide  ruin,  stand  back.     O 

young  men,  stand  back  from   that  chasm  !     You  see  the  practical  drift  of  the 

alarum  which  I  here  thus  sound.     I  want  you  to  know  where  that  road  leads. 

Stand  back  from  that  chasm  of  ruin.     The  time  is  going  to  come  (you  and  I  may 

not  live  to  see  it,  but  it  will  come,  just  as  certainly  as  there  is  a  God,  it  will  come) 

when  the  infidels  and  atheists  who  openly  and  out  and  out  and  above  board  preach 

and  practice  infidelity  and  atheism  will  be  considered  as  criminals  against  society, 

as  they  are  now  criminals  against  God.     Society  will  push  out  the  leper,  and  the 

wretch  with  soul  gangrened  and  ichorous  and  vermin-covered  and  rotting  apart 

with  his  beastiality,  will  be  left  to  die  in  the  ditch  and  be  denied  decent  burial,  and 

men  will  come  with  spades  and  cover  up  the  carcass  where  it  falls,  that  it  poison 

not  the  air,  and  the  only  text  in  all  the  Bible  appropriate  for  the  funeral  sermon 

will  be  found  in  the  book  of  Jeremiah   xxii.  19:      "He  shall  be  buried  with  the 

burial  of  an  ass." 

THE  SAME  SUN. 

A  thousand  voices  come  up  to  me  as  I  write,  saying:  "  Do  5'ou  really  think 
infidelity  will  succeed  ?  Has  Christianity  received  its  death-blow  ?  and  will  the 
Bible  become  obsolete?"  Yes,  when  the  smoke  of  the  chimney  arrests  and 
destroys  the  noon-daj'  sun.  Josephus  says  about  the  time  of  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  the  sun  was  turned  into  darkness;  but  only  the  clouds  rolled  between 
the  sun  and  the  earth.  The  sun  went  right  on.  It  is  the  same  sun,  the  same 
luminary  as  when  at  the  beginning  it  shot  out  like  an  electric  spark  from  God's 
finger,  and  to-day  it  is  warming  the  nations,  and  to-day  it  is  gilding  the  sea,  and 
to-day  it  is  filling  the  earth  with  light.     The  same  old  sun,  not  all  worn  out, 


(25: 


^54 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


though  its  light  steps  190,000,000  miles  a  second,  though  its  pulsations  are  four 
hundred  and  fifty  trillion  undulations  in  a  second.  Same  sun  with  beautiful  white 
light,  made  up  of  the  violet,  and  the  indigo,  and  the  blue,  and  the  green,  and  the 
red,  and  the  yellow,  and  the  orange — the  seven  beautiful  colors  now  just  as  when 
the  solar  spectrum  first  divided  them. 

At  the  beginning  God  said:  "Let  there  be  light,"  and  light  was,  and  light 
is,  and  light  shall  be.  So  Christianity  is  rolling  on,  and  it  is  going  to  warm  all 
nations,  and  all  nations  are  to  bask  in  its  light.  Men  may  shut  the  window-blinds 
so  they  cannot  see  it,  or  they  may  smoke  the  pipe  of  speculation  until  they  are 
shadowed  under  their  own  vaporing;  but  the  lyord  God  is  a  sun  !  This  white 
light  of  the  gospel,  made  up  of  all  the  beautiful  colors  of  earth  and  heaven — violet 
plucked  from  amid  the  spring  grass,  and  the  indigo  of  the  Southern  jungles,  and 
the  blue  of  the  skies,  and  the  green  of  the  foliage,  and  the  yellow  of  the  autumnal 
woods,  and  the  orange  of  the  Southern  groves,  and  the  red  of  the  sunsets.  All 
the  beauties  of  earth  and  heaven  brought  out  by  this  spiritual  spectrum.  Great 
Britain  is  going  to  take  all  Europe  for  God.  The  United  States  is  going  to  take  all 
America  for  God.  Both  of  them  together  will  take  all  Asia  for  God.  All  three  of 
them  will  take  Africa  for  God,  and  the  world  will  be  redeemed,  with  Christ  the 
ruler,  and  love  and  righteousness  will  prevail  universally. 


JllarXJ^l^   0t    CS^eniu^^ 


MEN   DISTINGUISHED   IN   HISTORY  WHO   BEGAN   LIFE  IN   POVERTY  AND  AFFLICTION. 


ti-^^ 


have  in  the  thirty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah  a  command 
f'^  given,  or  rather  implied,  that  the  "lame  take  the  prey." 
It  also,  and  more  directly,  perhaps,  predicts  the  utter  demo- 
lition of  the  Assyrian  host.  Not  only  robust  men  should  go 
forth  and  gather  the  spoils  of  conquest,  but  even  men  crip- 
pled of  arm  and  crippled  of  foot  should  go  out  and  capture 
much  that  was  valuable.  Their  physical  disadvantages 
should  not  hinder  their  great  enrichment.  So  it  has  been 
in  the  past,  so  it  is  now,  so  it  will  be  in  the  future.  So  it  is  in  all  departments. 
Men  labor  under  seemingly  great  disadvantages,  and  amid  the  most  unfavorable 
circumstances,  yet  making  grand  achievements,  getting  great  blessing  for  them- 
selves, great  blessing  for  the  world,  great  blessing  for  the  Church,  and  so  "the 
lame  take  the  prey . ' ' 

Do  you  know  that  the  three  great  poets  of  the  world  were  totally  blind  ? 
Homer,  Ossian,  John  Milton.  Do  you  know  that  Mr.  Prescott,  who  wrote  that 
enchanting  book,  "The  Conquest  of  Mexico,"  never  saw  Mexico,  could  not  even 
see  the  paper  on  which  he  was  writing  ?  A  framework  across  the  sheet,  between 
which,  up  and  down,  went  the  pen  immortal.  Do  you  know  that  Gambassio,  the 
sculptor,  could  not  see  the  marble  before  him,  or  the  chisel  with  which  he  cut  it 
into  shapes  bewitching  ?  Do  you  know  that  Alexander  Pope,  whose  poems  will 
last  as  long  as  the  English  language,  was  so  much  of  an  invalid  that  he  had  to  be 
sewed  up  every  morning  in  rough  canvas  in  order  to  stand  on  his  feet  at  all  ? 

Do  you  know  that  Stuart,  the  celebrated  painter,  did  much  of  his  wonderful 
work  under  the  shadow  of  the  dungeon,  where  he  had  been  unjustly  imprisoned 
for  debt  ?  Do  you  know  that  Demosthenes  by  almost  superhuman  exertion  first 
had  to  conquer  the  lisp  of  his  own  speech  before  he  conquered  assemblages  with 
his  eloquence  ?  Do  you  know  that  Bacon  struggled  all  through  innumerable  sick- 
nesses, and  that  Lord  Byron  and  Sir  Walter  Scott  went  limping  on  clubfoot  through 
all  their  life,  and  that  many  of  the  great  poets  and  painters  and  orators  and  histo- 
rians and  heroes  of  the  world  had  something  to  keep  them  back,  and  pull  them 
down,  and  impede  their  way,  and  cripple  their  physical  or  their  intellectual  move- 
ment, and  yet  that  they  pushed  on  and  pushed  up  until  they  reached  the  spoils  of 

(^55) 


liLIND   BARTIMFUS. 


(256) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


257 


worldly  success,  and  amid  the 
huzza  of  the  nations  and  cen- 
turies ' '  the  lame  took  the 
prey  ?" 

You  know  that  a  vast  mul- 
titude  of    these    men   started 
under  the  disadvantage  of  ob- 
scure   parentage.     Columbus, 
the  son  of  the  weaver.     Fer- 
guson,  the  astronomer,  the  son  of 
the  shepherd.     America  the  prey  of 
the  one;  worlds  on  worlds  the  prey 
of  the  other.      But  what  is  true  in 
secular  directions   is   more  true  in 
spiritual    and   religious   directions, 
and  I  proceed  to  prove  it. 

There  are  in  all  communities 
many  invalids.  They  never  knew 
a  well  day.  They  adhere  to  their 
occupations,  but  they  go  panting 
along  the  streets  with  exhaustions, 
and  at  eventime  they  lie  down  on 
the  lounge  with  achings  beyond 
all  medicament.  They  have  tried 
all  prescriptions;  they  have  gone 
through  all  the  cures  which  were 
proclaimed  infallible,  and  they  have 
come  now  to  surrender  to  perpetual 
ailments.  They  consider  they  are 
among  many  disadvantages,  and 
when  they  see  those  who  are  buoy- 
ant in  health  pass  by,  they  almost 
envy  their  robust  frames  and  easy 
respiration. 

But  I  have  noticed  among  that 
invalid  class  those  who  have  the 
greatest  knowledge  of  the  Bible, 
who  are  in  nearest  intimacy  with 
Jesus  Christ,  who  have  the  most 
glowing  experiences  of  the  truth, 
17 


2.S8 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


who  have  had  the  most  remarkable  answers  to  prayer,  and  who  have  the  most 
exhilarant  anticipations  of  heaven.  The  temptations  which  weary  us  who  are  in 
robust  health  they  have  conquered.  They  have  divided  among  them  the  spoils  of 
the  conquest.  Many  who  are  alert  and  athletic  and  strong  loiter  in  the  way. 
These  are  the  lame  that  take  the  prey.  Robert  Hall  an  invalid,  Edward  Payson 
an  invalid,  Richard  Baxter  an  invalid,  Samuel  Rutherford  an  invalid.  Through 
raised  letters  the  art  of  printing  has  been  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  blind. 

You  take 
up  the  Bible 
for  the  blind 
and  you  close 
your eyes anc 
you  run  your 
fingers  ovei 
the  raised 
letters  and 
you  s  a  3'  : 
"Why,  I 
never  could 
get  any  in- 
formation in 
this  way. 
What  a  slow, 
lumbrous 
way  of  read- 

BRINGING   HOME  THE  LOST  SHEEP.  i  n  P" '         O  O  d 

lielp  the  blind."     And  yet  I  find  among  that  class  of  persons,  among  the  blind, 

the  deaf  and  the  dumb,  the  most  thorough  acquaintance  with  God's  word.     Shut 

■out  from  all  other  sources  of  information,  no  sooner  does  their  hand  touch  the 

raised  letter  than  they  gather  a  prayer.     Without  eyes,  they  look  off  upon  the 

"kingdoms  of  God's   love.       Without  hearing,    they  catch  the  minstrelsy  of  the 

skies.     Dumb,  yet  with  pencil  or  with  irradiated  countenance,  they  declare  the 

glory  of  God. 

THE   DEAF  AND   DUMB. 

A  large  audience  assembled  in  New  York  at  the  anniversary  of  the  Deaf 
and  Dumb  Asylum,  and  one  of  the  visitors,  with  chalk  on  the  blackboard, 
wrote  this  question  to  the  pupils:  "Do  you  not  find  it  very  hard  to  be  deaf 
and  dumb  ?" 

And  one  of  the  pupils  took  the  chalk  and  wrote  on  the  blackboard  this  sub- 
lime sentence  in  answer:   "When  the  song  of  the   angels  shall  burst  upon  our 


•    THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFK.  259 

enraptured  ear,  we  will  scarce  regret  that  our  ears  were  never  marred  with  earthly 
sounds." 

Oh,  the  brightest  eyes  in  heaven  will  be  those  that  never  saw  on  earth.  The 
ears  most  alert  in  heaven  will  be  those  that  in  this  world  heard  neither  voice  of 
friend,  nor  thrum  of  harp,  nor  carol  of  bird,  nor  doxology  of  congregations. 

A  lad  who  had  been  blind  from  infancy  was  cured.  The  oculist  operated 
upon  the  lad,  and  then  put  a  very  heavy  bandage  over  the  eyes,  and  after  a  few 
weeks  had  gone  by  the  bandage  was  removed,  and  the  mother  said  to  her  child: 
"  Willie,  can  you  see  ?"     He  said:    "  Oh  !  mamma,  is  this  heaven  ?" 

The  contrast  between  the  darkness  before  and  the  brightness  afterward  was 
overwhelming.  And  I  tell  you  the  glories  of  heaven  will  be  a  thousand-fold 
brighter  for  those  who  never  saw  anything  on  earth.  While  many  with  good 
vision  closed  their  eyes  in  night,  and  many  who  had  a  good  artistic  and  cultured 
ear  went  down  into  discord,  these  aiSicted  ones  cried  unto  the  I^ord  in  their  trou- 
ble, and  he  made  their  sorrows  their  advantage,  and  so  "  the  lame  took  the 
prey. ' ' 

In  the  seventh  century  there  was  a  legend  of  St.  Modobert.  It  was  said  that 
his  mother  was  blind,  and  one  day  while  looking  at  his  mother  he  felt  so  sympa- 
thetic for  her  blindness  that  he  rushed  forward  and  kissed  her  blind  eyes,  and  the 
legend  says  her  vision  came  immediately.  That  was  only  a  legend,  but  it  is  a 
truth,  a  glorious  truth,  that  a  kiss  of  God's  eternal  love  has  brought  to  many  a 
blind  eye  eternal  illumination. 

There  are  those  in  all  communities  who  toil  mightily  for  a  livelihood.  They 
have  scant  wages.  Perhaps  they  are  diseased,  or  have  physical  infirmities,  so 
ihey  are  hindered  from  doing  a  continuous  day's  work.  A  city  missionary  finds 
them  up  the  dark  alley,  with  no  fire,  with  thin  clothing,  with  very  coarse  bread. 
They  never  ride  in  the  street  car;  they  cannot  afford  the  five  cents.  They  never 
see  any  pictures  save  those  in  the  show-window  on  the  street,  from  which  they  are 
often  jostled,  and  looked  at  by  some  one  who  seems  to  say  in  the  look:  "  Move  on. 
What  are  you  doing  here  looking  at  pictures  ?' ' 

Yet  many  of  them  live  on  mountains  of  transfiguration.  At  their  rough  table 
He  who  fed  the  five  thousand  breaks  the  bread.  They  talk  often  of  the  good 
times  that  are  coming.  This  world  has  no  charm  for  them,  but  heaven  entrances 
their  spirit.  They  often  divide  their  scant  crust  with  some  forlorn  wretch  who 
knocks  at  their  door  at  night,  and  on  the  blast  of  the  night  wind,  as  the  door 
opens  to  let  him  in,  is  heard  the  voice  of  Him  who  said:  "I  was  hungry  and  ye 
fed  me."  No  cohort  of  heaven  will  be  too  bright  to  transport  them.  By  God's 
help  they  have  vanquished  the  Assyrian  hosts.  They  have  divided  among  them 
the  spoils.     Lame,  lame,  yet  they  took  the  prey. 


26o 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I,IFE. 


A    LAME    OLD    MAN. 

I  was  riding  along  a  country  road  one  day,  and  I  saw  a  man  on  crutches.  I 
overtook  him.  He  was  very  old.  He  was  going  very  slowly.  At  that  rate  it 
would  have  taken  him  two  hours  to  go  a  mile. 

I  said:   "Wouldn't  you  like  to  ride  ?" 

He  said:  "Thank  you,  I  would,  God  bless  you."  When  he  sat  beside  me, 
he  said:  "You  see,  I  am  very  lame  and  very  old,  but  the  I^ord  has  been  a  good 
Lord  to  me.  I  have  buried  all  my  children.  The  lyOrd  gave  them  and  the  I^ord 
had  a  right  to  take  them  away.  Blessed  be  His  name.  I  was  verj-  sick,  and  I 
had  no  money,  and  my  neighbors  came  in  and  took  care  of  me,  and  I  "wanted 


I^EEDING  THE  MULTITUDE. 

nothing.  I  suffer  a  great  deal  with  pain,  but  then  I  have  so  many  mercies  left. 
The  lyord  has  been  a  good  Lord  to  me." 

And  before  we  had  got  far  I  was  in  doubt  whether  I  was  giving  him  a  ride  or 
he  was  giving  me  a  ride.     He  said: 

"  Now,  if  you  please,  I'll  get  out  here.  Just  help  me  down  on  my  crutches, 
if  you  please.  God  bless  you.  Thank  you,  sir.  Good  morning.  Good  morn- 
ing.    You  have  been  feet  to  the  lame,  sir,  you  have.     Good  morning." 

Strong  men  had  gone  the  road  that  day.  I  do  not  know  where  the}^  came 
out,  but  every  hobble  of  that  old  man  was  toward  the  shining  gate.  With  his  old 
crutch  he  had  struck,  down  many  a  Sennacherib  of  temptation*  which  has  mastered 
you  and  me.     Lame,  so  fearfully  lame,  so  awfully  lame;  but  he  took  the  prey. 

There  are  in  all  communities  many  orphans.  During  our  last  war,  and  in 
the  years  immediately  following,  how  many  children  we  heard  say:  "  Oh  !  my 
father  was  killed  in  the  war." 

Have  you  ever  noticed — I  fear  you  have  not — how  well  those  children  have 
turned  out  ?     Starting  under  the  greatest  disadvantage,  no  orphan  asylum  could 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  261 

do  for  them  what  their  father  would  have  done  had  he  lived.  The  skirmisher  sat 
one  night,  by  the  light  of  fagots,  in  the  swamp,  writing  a  letter  home,  when  a 
sharpshooter's  bullet  ended  the  letter,  which  was  never  folded,  never  posted,  and, 
never  read. 

Those  children  came  up  under  great  disadvantage.  No  father  to  fight  their 
way  for  them.  Perhaps  there  was  in  the  old  family  Bible  an  old  yellow  letter 
pasted  fast,  which  told  the  story  of  that  father's  long  march,  and  how  he  suffered 
in  the  hospital;  but  they  looked  still  further  on  in  the  Bible,  and  they  came  to  the 
story  of  how  God  is  the  father  of  the  fatherless,  and  the  widow's  portion,  and  they 
soon  took  their  father's  place  in  that  household.  They  battled  the  way  for  their 
mother.  They  came  on  up,  and  many  of  them  have  in  the  years  since  the  war 
taken  positions  in  church  and  State.  While  many  of  those  who  suffered  nothing 
during  those  times  have  had  sons  go  out  into  lives  of  indolence  and  vagabondage, 
those  who  started  under  so  many  disadvantages  because  they  were  so  early  bereft 
— these  are  the  lame  who  took  the  prey. 

There  are  those  who  would  like  to  do  good.  They  say:  "Oh!  If  I  only 
had  wealth,  or  if  I  had  eloquence,  or  if  I  had  high  social  position,  how  much  I 
would  accomplish  for  God  and  the  Church." 

I  tell  you  that  you  have  great  opportunities  for  usefulness. 

WHAT  WORKINGMEN   HAVE  DONE. 

Who  built  the  Pyramids  ?  The  king  who  ordered  them  built  ?  No;  the  plain 
workmen  who  added  stone  after  stone  and  stone  after  stone.  Who  built  the  dikes 
of  Holland  ?  The  Government  that  ordered  the  enterprise  ?  No;  the  plain  work- 
men who  carried  the  earth  and  rung  their  trowel  on  the  wall.  Who  are  those  who 
have  built  these  vast  cities  ?  The  capitalists  ?  No;  the  carpenters,  the  masons, 
the  plumbers,  the  plasterers,  the  tinners,  the  roofers,  dependent  on  a  day's  wages 
for  a  livelihood.  And  so  in  the  great  work  of  assuaging  human  suffering  and 
enlightening  human  ignorance  and  halting  human  iniquity.  In  that  great  work, 
the  chief  part  is  to  be  done  by  ordinary  men,  with  ordinary  speech,  in  an  ordinary 
manner,  and  by  ordinary  means.  The  trouble  is  that  in  the  army  of  Christ  we  all 
want  to  be  captains  and  colonels  and  brigadier-generals.  We  are  not  willing  to 
march  with  the  rank  and  file  and  to  do  duty  with  the  private  soldier.  We  want  to 
belong  to  the  reserve  corps,  and  read  about  the  battle  while  warming  ourselves  at 
the  camp-fires,  or  on  furlough  at  home,  our  feet  upon  an  ottoman,  we  sagging  back 
into  an  arm-chair. 

As  5^ou  go  down  the  street  you  see  an  excavation  and  four  or  five  men  are 
working,  and  perhaps  twenty  or  thirty  leaning  on  the  rail  looking  over  at  them. 
That  is  the  way  it  is  in  the  Church  of  God  to-day.  Where  you  find  one  Christian 
hard  at  work  there  are  fifty  men  watching  the  job. 


262  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Oh,  my  friends  !  why  do  you  not  go  to  work  and  preach  this  gospel  ?  You 
say,  "  I  have  no  pulpit. "  You  have.  It  maybe  the  carpenter's  bench;  it  may 
be  the  mason's  wall.  The  robe  in  which  you  are  to  proclaim  this  gospel  may  be  a 
shoemaker's  apron.  But  woe  unto  you  if  you  preach  not  this  gospel  somewhere, 
somehow  !  If  this  world  is  ever  brought  to  Christ  it  will  be  through  the  unani- 
mous and  long-continued  efforts  of  men  who,  waiting  for  no  special  endowment, 
consecrate  to  God  what  they  have.  Among  the  most  useless  people  in  the  world 
are  men  with  ten  talents,  while  many  a  one  with  only  two  talents,  or  no  talent  at 
all,  is  doing  a  great  work,  and  so  "  the  lame  take  the  prey." 

SABBATH-SCHOOL  TEACHERS. 

There  are  thousands  of  ministers  of  whom  you  have  never  heard — in  log 
cabins  at  the  West,  in  mission  chapels  at  the  East — who  are  warring  against  the 
legions  of  darkness,  successfully  warring.  Tract  distributers,  month  by  month 
undermining  the  citadels  of  sin.  You  do  not  know  their  going  or  their  coming, 
but  the  footfalls  of  their  ministry  are  heard  in  the  palaces  of  heaven.  Who  are 
the  workers  in  our  Sabbath- schools  throughout  this  land  to-day  ?  Men  celebrated, 
men  of  vast  estate  ?  For  the  most  part,  not  that  at  all.  I  have  noticed  that  the 
chief  characteristic  of  the  most  of  those  who  are  successful  in  the  work  is  that  they 
know  their  Bibles,  are  earnest  in  prayer,  are  anxious  for  the  salvation  of  the  young, 
and  Sabbath  by  Sabbath  are  willing  to  sit  down  unobserved  and  tell  of  Christ  and 
the  resurrection.  These  are  the  humble  workers  who  are  recruiting  the  great 
army  of  Christian  youth — not  by  might,  not  by  power,  not  by  profound  argument, 
not  by  brilliant  antithesis,  but  by  the  blessing  of  God  on  plain  talk,  and  humble 
story,  and  silent  tear,  and  anxious  look.      "  The  lame  take  the  prey." 

Oh  !  this  work  of  saving  the  youth  of  our  country — how  few  appreciate  what 
it  is.  This  generation  tramping  on  to  the  grave — ^we  will  soon  all  be  gone.  What 
next? 

An  engineer  on  a  locomotive  going  across  the  Western  prairies  day  after  day, 
saw  a  little  child  come  out  in  front  of  a  cabin  and  wave  to  him;  so  he  got  in  the 
habit  of  waving  back  to  the  little  child,  and  it  was,  the  day's  joy  to  him  to  see  this 
little  one  come  out  in  front  of  the  cabin  door  and  wave  to  him,  while  he  answered 
back. 

One  day  the  train  was  belated  and  it  came  on  to  the  dusk  of  the  evening. 
As  the  engineer  stood  at  his  post  he  saw  by  the  headlight  that  little  girl  on  the 
track,  wondering  why  the  train  did  not  come,  looking  for  the  train,  knowing 
nothing  of  its  peril.  A  great  horror  seized  upon  the  engineer.  He  reversed  the 
engine.  He  gave  it  in  charge  of  the  other  man  on  board,  and  then  he  climbed 
over  the  engine  and  he  came  down  on  the  cow-catcher.  He  said,  though  he  had 
reversed  the  engine,  it  seemed  as  though  it  were  going  at  lightning  speed,  faster  and 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


263 


faster,  though  it  was  really  slowing  up,  and  with  almost  supernatural  clutch  he 
caught  that  child  by  the  hair  and  lifted  it  up,  and  when  the  train  stopped  and  the 
passengers  gathered  around  to  see  what  was  the  matter,  there  the  old  engineer  lay, 
fainted  dead  away,  the  little  child  alive  and  in  his  swarthy  arms. 

"Oh!"  you  say,  "  that  was  well  done. "  But  I  want  you  to  exercise  some 
kindness  and  some  appreciation  toward  those  in  the  community  who  are  snatching 
the  Httle  ones  from  under  the  wheels  of  temptation  and  sin— snatching  them  from 


RECITING  INCIDENTS   OF  HIS  VALOR. 

under  thundering  rail-trains  of  eternal  disaster,  bringing  them  up  into  respecta- 
bility in  this  world  and  into  glory  for  the  world  to  come. 

THE  ROYAL  FAMILY. 

God  has  a  royal  family  in  the  world.  Now,  if  I  should  ask:  "  Who  are  the 
royal  families  of  history  ?"  you  would  say:  "  House  of  Hapsburg,  house  of  Stuarts, 
house  of  Bourbons. "  They  lived  in  palaces  and  had  great  equipages.  But  who 
are  the  Lord's  royal  family  ?    Some  of  them  may  serve  you  in  the  household,  some 


264 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


of  them  are  in  the  unlighted  garrets,  some  of  them  walk  down  the  street,  on  their 
arm  a  basket  of  broken  food;  some  of  them  are  in  the  almshouse,  despised  and 
rejected  of  men;  yet  in  the  last  great  day  while  it  will  be  found  that  some  of  us 
who  fared  sumptuously  every  day  are  hurled  back  into  discomfiture,  there  are  the 
lame  that  will  take  the  prey. 

Years  ago,  on  a  boat  on  the  North  River,  the  pilot  gave  a  very  sharp  ring  to 
the  bell  for  the  boat  to  slow  up.  The  engineer  attended  to  the  machinery,  and 
then  he  came  up,  with  some  alarm,  on  deck  to  see  what  was  the  matter.  He  saw 
it  was  a  moonlight  night  and  there  were  obstacles  in  the  way.  He  went  to  the 
pilot  and  said:  "Why  did  you  ring  the  bell  in  that  way?  Why  do  you  w^ant 
to  vStop,  there's  nothing  the  matter?" 

And  the  pilot  said  to  him:  "There  is  a  mist  gathering  on  the  river;  don't 
you  see  that?  And  there  is  night  gathering  darker  and  darker,  and  I  can't  see 
the  way." 

Then  the  engineer,  looking  around  and  seeing  it  was  a  bright  moonlight, 
looked  into  the  face  of  the  pilot  and  saw  that  he  was  dying,  and  then  that  he  was 
dead.  God  grant  that  when  our  last  moment  comes  we  may  be  found  at  our  post 
doing  our  whole  duty,  and  when  the  mists  of  the  river  of  death  gather  in  our 
eyelids  may  the  good  Pilot  take  the  wheel  from  our  hands  and  guide  us  into  the 
calm  harbor  of  eternal  rest ! 

Drop  the  anchor,  furl  the  sail, 
I  am  safe  within  the  veil. 


M^tixtxhi^txnj^i^^^ 


THE    DEEP    DAMNATION    THAT    CURSES   AND    IMPOVERISHES    MILLIONS— THE   SLAVERY 

OF  THE   POOR. 

SHE  onl}^  argument  that  can  be  made  against  the  Saturday 
afternoon  closing  is  that  this  weekly  vacation  may  be 
turned  into  wassail.  Better  have  no  Saturday  afternoon 
free,  from  now  until  the  day  of  your  death,  if  the  liquor 
saloon  adds  you  to  its  discipleship.  The  rum  business  is 
pouring  its  vitriolic  and  damnable  liquids  down  the  throats 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  laborers,  and  while  the  ordi- 
nary strikes  are  ruinous  both  to  employers  and  employes,  I  pro- 
claim a  strike  universal  against  strong  drink,  which,  if  kept  up, 
will  be  the  relief  of  the  working-classes  and  the  salvation  of  the 
nation.  I  will  undertake  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  healthy  laborer 
in  the  United  States  w^ho  within  the  next  ten  years,  if  he  will 
refuse  all  intoxicating  beverage  and  be  saving,  may  not  become 
a  capitalist  on  a  small  scale.  Our  country  in  a  year  spends 
Si, 500, GOO, GOO  for  rum.  Of  course,  the  working- classes  do  a 
great  deal  of  this  expenditure.  Careful  statistics  show  that  the 
wage-earning  classes  of  Great  Britain  expend  in  liquor  ;^ioo,- 
GGG.ooG  or  $5GO,GGG,GGG  a  3^ear.  Sit  down  now  and  calculate, 
O  workingman  !  how  much  you  have  expended  in  these  directions.  Add  it  all 
up.  Add  up  what  j'our  neighbors  have  expended,  and  realize  that  instead  of 
answering  the  beck  of  other  people  you  might  have  been  your  own  capitalist. 
When  you  deplete  a  workingman's  physical  energy  you  deplete  his  capital. 

The  stimulated  workman  gives  out  before  the  unstimulated  workman.  My 
father  said:  "  I  became  a  temperance  man  in  early  life,  because  I  noticed  in  the 
harvest-field  that,  though  I  was  physically  weaker  than  other  men,  I  could  hold 
out  longer  than  they.  They  took  stimulants,  I  took  none."  A  brickmaker  in 
England  gives  his  experience  in  regard  to  this  matter  among  men  in  his  employ. 
He  says,  after  investigation:  "The  beer-drinker,  who  made  the  fewest  bricks, 
made  659,000;  the  abstainer,  who  made  the  fewest  bricks,  746,000.  The  differ- 
ence, in  behalf  of  the  abstainer  over  the  indulger,  87,000.  There  came  a  very 
exhausting  time  in   the  British  Parliament.      The  session  was  prolonged  until 

(265) 


266 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 


nearly  all  the  members  got  sick  or  worn  out.     Out  of  652  members  only  two  went 

through  undamaged;  they  were  teetotalers. 

Better  be  like  Daniel,  who  refused  the  king's  wine  because,  though  a  young 

man,  he  was  wise  enough  to  know^  that  intoxicants,  or  stinmlants,  if  you  prefer, 

weaken  both  mind  and 
body,  and  are  always 
hurtful  to  the  brain  and 
damnation  to  the  soul. 

When  an  army  goes 
out  to  the  battle  the  sol- 
dier who  has  water  or 
coffee  in  his  canteen 
marches  easier  and  fights 
better  than  the  soldier 
who  has  whisky  in  his 
canteen.  Rum  helps  a 
man  to  fight  when  he 
has  only  one  contestant, 
and  that  at  the  street- 
corner.  But  when  he 
o;oes  forth  to  maintain 
ome  great  battle  for 
<>od  and  his  country  he 
t^ants  no  rum  about  him. 
When  the  Russians  go 
1 0  war  a  corporal  passes 
long  the  line  and  smells 
he  breath  of  ever}-  sol- 
dier. If  there  be  in  his 
breath  a  taint  of  intoxi- 
cating liquor,  the  man  is 
sent  back  to  the  barracks. 
WHiy?  He  cannot  endure 
fatigue.  All  our  young 
men  know  this.  When 
they  are  preparing  for  a 

regatta,  or  for  a  ball  club,  or  for  an  athletic  wrestling,  they  abstain.     Our  working 

people  will  be  wiser  after  a  while,   and  the  money  they  fling  away   on  hurtful 

indulgences  they  wall  put  into  co-operative  associations,  and  so  become  capitalists. 

Have  Saturday  afternoons  free,  but  by  all  means  have  them  sober. 


DANIEL  REFUSING  THE   KING'S   WINE. 


CS:enis;rttl  ^iJr^l^Xttt^ 


THE  CAPTURE  OF  Al,  AND  THE  GREAT   BATTLES  WHICH  ARE   FOUGHT  FOR  GLORY  AND 

FOR   LIFE. 

jNE  Sabbath  evening,  with  my  family  around  me,  we  were 
talking  over  the  scenes  described  in  the  eighth  chapter  of 
Joshua,  of  the  manner  in  which  the  great  city  of  Ai  was 
captured.  There  is  the  old  city,  shorter  b}^  name  than  any 
other  city  in  the  ages,  spelled  with  two  letters — A,  I — Ai. 
Joshua  and  his  men  wanted  to  take  it.  How  to  do  it  is  the 
question.  On  a  former  occasion,  in  a  straightforward,  face- 
to-face  fight,  they  had  been  defeated;  but  now  they  are 
going  to  take  it  by  ambuscade.  General  Joshua  has  two 
divisions  in  his  army — the  one  division  the  battle-worn 
commander  will  lead  himself,  the  other  division  he  sends  off  to  encamp  in  an. 
ambush  on  the  west  side  of  the  city  of  Ai.  No  torches,  no  lanterns,  no  sound  of 
heavy  battalions,  but  thirty  thousand  swarthy  warriors  moving  in  silence,  speaking 
only  in  a  whisper;  no  clicking  of  swords  against  shields,  lest  the  watchman  of  Ai 
discover  it  and  the  stratagem  be  a  failure.  If  a  roistering  soldier  in  the  Israel- 
itish  army  forgets  himself,  all  along  the  line  the  word  is  "  Hush  !"  Joshua  takes 
the  other  division,  the  one  with  which  he  is  to  march,  and  puts  it  on  the  north 
side  of  the  city  of  Ai,  and  then  spends  the  night  in  reconnoitering  in  the  valley. 
There  he  is,  thinking  over  the  fortunes  of  the  coming  day,  with  something  of  the 
feeling  of  Wellington  the  night  before  Waterloo,  or  of  Meade  and  Lee  the  night 
before  Gettysburg.  There  he  stands  in  the  night,  and  says  to  himself:  "Yonder 
is  the  division  in  ambush  on  the  west  side  of  Ai.  Here  is  the  division  I  have 
under  my  especial  command  on  the  north  side  of  Ai.  There  is  the  old  city  slum- 
bering in  its  sin.  To-morrow  will  be  the  battle.  Look  !  the  morning  already 
begins  to  tip  the  hills. ' ' 

The  military  ofiicers  of  Ai  look  out  in  the  morning  ven,"  early,  and,  while 
they  do  not  see  the  division  in  ambush,  they  behold  the  other  division  of  Joshua, 
and  the  cry,  "To  arms!  To  arms!"  rings  through  all  the  streets  of  the  old 
town,  and  every  sword,  whether  hacked  and  bent  or  newly  welded,  is  brought  out 
and  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  of  Ai  pour  through  the  gates,  an  infuriated 
torrent,  and  their  cry  is:   "Come — we'll  make  quick  work  with  Joshua  and  his 

(267) 


268  TH^  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

troops!"  No  sooner  had  these  people  of  Ai  come  out  against  the  troops  of 
Joshua  than  Joshua  gave  such  a  command  as  he  seldom  gave:  "Fall  back!" 
Why,  they  could  not  believe  their  own  ears.     Is  Joshua's  courage  failing  him? 

"ABOUT  FACE-CHARGE." 

The  retreat  is  beaten  and  the  Israelites  are  flying,  throwing  blankets  and 
canteens  on  every  side  under  this  worse  than  Bull  Run  defeat.  And  3'ou  ought  to 
hear  the  soldiers  of  Ai  cheer,  and  cheer,  and  cheer.  But  they  huzza  to  soon. 
The  men  lying  in  ambush  are  straining  their  vision  to  get  some  signal  from  Joshua 
that  they  may  know"  what  time  to  drop  upon  the  city.  Joshua  takes  his  burnished 
spear,  glittering  in  the  sun  like  a  shaft  of  doom,  and  points  it  toward  the  city, 
and  when  the  men  up  3'onder  in  the  ambush  see  it,  with  hawk-like  swoop  they 
drop  upon  Ai,  and  without  stroke  of  sword  or  stab  of  spear,  take  the  city  and  put 
it  to  the  torch.  So  much  for  the  division  that  was  in  ambush.  How  about  the 
division  under  Joshua's  command  ?  No  sooner  does  Joshua  stop  in  the  fight  than 
all  his  men  stop  with  him,  and  as  he  wheels  they  wheel,  for  in  a  voice  of  thunder 
he  cried:  "Halt!"  One  strong  arm  driving  back  a  torrent  of  flying  troops. 
And  then,  as  he  points  his  spear  through  the  golden  light  toward  that  fatal  city, 
his  troops  know  that  they  are  to  start  for  it.  What  a  scene  it  was  when  the 
division  in  ambush,  which  had  taken  the  city,  marched  down  against  the  men  of 
Ai  on  the  one  side,  and  the  troops  under  Joshua  doubled  up  their  enemies  from 
the  other  side,  and  the  men  of  Ai  were  caught  between  these  two  hurricanes  of 
Israelitish  courage,  thrust  before  and  behind,  stabbed  in  breast  and  back,  ground 
between  the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  God's  indignation.  Woe  to  the  city 
of  Ai  !     Cheer  for  the  triumphs  of  Israel  ! 

But  there  is  such  a  thing  as  victorious  retreat.  Joshua's  falling  back  was  the 
first  chapter  in  his  successful  besiegement.  And  there  are  times  in  your  life  when 
the  best -thing  you  can  do  is  to  run.  You  were  once  the  victim  of  strong  drink. 
The  demijohn  and  the  decanter  were  your  fierce  foes.  They  came  down  upon  you 
with  greater  fury  than  the  men  of  Ai  upon  the  men  of  Joshua.  Your  only  safety 
is  to  get  away  from  them.  Your  dissipating  companions  will  come  around  for 
your  overthrow.  Run  for  your  life  !  Fall  back  !  Fall  back  from  the  drinking 
saloon.  Fall  back  from  the  wine  party.  Your  flight  is  your  advance  !  Your 
retreat  is  your  victory.  There  is  a  saloon  down  on  the  next  street  that  has  been 
the  ruin  of  your  soul.  Then,  why  do  you  go  along  that  street  ?  Why  do  you 
not  pass  through  some  other  street  rather  than  by  the  place  of  your  calamity  ?  A 
spoonful  of  brandy,  taken  for  medicinal  purposes  by  a  man  who  twenty  years 
before  had  been  reformed  from  drunkenness,  hurled  into  inebriety  and  the  grave 
one  of  the  best  friends  I  ever  had.  Your  retreat  is  your  victory.  Here  is  a  con- 
verted infidel.     He  is  so  strong  now  in  his  faith  in  the  gospel  he  says  he  can  read 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  IvIFE. 


269 


anything.  What  are  your  reading  ?  Bolingbroke  ?  Andrew  Jackson  Davis' 
tracts?  Tyndall's  Glasgow  University  address  ?  Drop  them  and  run.  You  will 
be  an  infidel  before  you  die  unless  you  quit  that.  These  men  of  Ai  will  be  too 
much  for  you.  Turn  your  back  on  the  rank  and  file  of  unbelief.  Fly  before  they 
cut  you  with  their  swords  and  transfix  you  with  their  javelins. 

There  are  people  who  have  been  well-nigh  ruined  because  they  risked  a  fool- 
hardy expedition  in  the  presence  of  mighty  and  overwhelming  temptations,  and 

the  men   of  Ai  made   a   morning  p^ •_  ^-^ .^^^ 

meal  of  them.  So  also  there  is  "^^  ^  ■ — '■ — i — ^  '  -t^Z.  '  ,A. 
such  a  thing  as  victorious  retreat 
in  the  religious  world.  Thousand 
of  times  the  kingdom  of  Christ  has 
seemed  to  fall  back.  When  the 
blood  of  the  Scotch  Covenanters 
gave  a  deeper  dye  to  the  heather 
of  the  Highlanders;  when  the 
Vaudois  of  France  chose  extermi- 
nation rather  than  make  an  un- 
christian surrender;  when  on  St. 
Bartholomew's  Day  mounted  as- 
sassins rode  through  the  streets 
of  Paris,  crying:  "  Kill  !  Blood- 
letting is  good  in  August  !  Kill  ! 
Death  to  the  Huguenots  !  Kill !" 
when  L,ady  Jane  Grey's  head  rolled 
from  the  executioner's  block;  when 
Calvin  was  imprisoned  in  the  cas- 
tle; when  John  Knox  died  for  the 
truth;  when  John  Bunyan  lay  rot- 
ting in  Bedford  jail,  saying:  "If 
God  will  help  me,  and  my  physical 
life  continues,  I  will  stay  here  until 
the  moss  grows  on  my  eyebrows 
rather    than    give   up   my    faith."  scourging  of  jesus. 

The  days  of  retreat  for  the  Church  were  days  of  victory. 

The  Pilgrim  Fathers  fell  back  from  the  other  side  of  the  sea  to  Plymouth 
Rock,  but  now  are  marshaling  a  continent  for  the  Christianization  of  the 
world.  The  Church  of  Christ  falling  back  from  Piedmont,  falling  back  from 
Rue  St.  Jacques,  falling  back  from  St.  Denis,  falling  back  from  Wurtemburg 
castles,  falling  back  from  the  Brussels  market  place,  yet  all  the  time  triumphing. 


270  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  shocking  reverses  which  the  Church  of  Christ  suffers, 
what  do  we  see  to-day  ?  Three  thousand  missionaries  of  the  cross  on  heathen 
ground;  sixty  thousand  ministers  of  Jesus  Christ  in  this  land;  at  least  two  hundred 
millions  of  Christians  on  the  earth.  All  nations  to-day  kindling  in  a  blaze  of 
revival.     Falling  back,  yet  advancing  until  the  old  Wesleyan  hymn  will  prove 

true: 

The  Lion  of  Judah  shall  break  the  chain 
And  give  us  the  victory  again  and  again  ! 

But  there  is  a  more  marked  illustration  of  victorious  retreat  in  the  life  of  our 
Joshua,  the  Jesus  of  the  ages.  First  falling  back  from  an  appalling  height  to  an 
appalling  depth,  falling  from  celestial  hills  to  terrestrial  valleys,  from  throne  to 
manger,  yet  that  did  not  seem  to  suffice  Him  as  a  retreat.  Falling  back  still 
further  from  Bethlehem  to  Nazareth,  from  Nazareth  to  Jerusalem,  back  from 
Jerusalem  to  Golgotha,  back  from  Golgotha  to  the  mausoleum  in  the  rock,  back 
•down  over  the  precipices  of  perdition  until  He  walked  amid  the  caverns  of  the 
eternal  captives,  and  drank  of  the  wine  of  the  wrath  of  Almighty  God  amid  the 
Ahabs  and  the  Jezebels  and  the  Belshazzars.  O  men  of  the  pulpit  and  men  of  the 
pew,  Christ's  descent  from  heaven  to  earth  does  not  measure  half  the  distance. 
It  was  from  glorj'-  to  perdition.  He  descended  into  hell.  All  the  records  of 
earthly  retreat  are  as  nothing  compared  with  this  falling  back.  Santa  Anna,  with 
the  fragments  of  the  army,  flying  over  the  plateaux  of  Mexico,  and  Napoleon 
and  his  army  retreating  from  Moscow  into  the  awful  snows  of  Russia,  are  not 
worthy  to  be  mentioned  with  this  retreat,  when  all  the  powers  of  darkness  seem 
to  be  pursuing  Christ  as  He  fell  back,  until  the  body  of  Him  who  came  to  do  such 
wonderful  things  lay  pulseless  and  stripped.  Methinks  that  the  city  of  Ai  was 
not  so  emptied  of  its  inhabitants  when  they  went  to  pursue  Joshua  as  perdition 
was  emptied  of  devils  when  they  started  for  the  pursuit  of  Christ,  and  He  fell  back 
and  back,  down  lower,  down  lower,  chasm  below  chasm,  pit  below  pit,  until  He 
seemed  to  strike  the  bottom  of  objurgation  and  scorn  and  torture.  Oh,  the  long, 
loud,  jubilant  shout  of  hell  at  the  defeat  of  the  I^ord  God  Almighty  ! 

But  let  not  the  powers  of  darkness  rejoice  quite  so  soon.  Do  you  hear  that 
disturbance  in  the  tomb  of  Arimathea  ?  I  hear  the  sheet  rending  !  What  means 
that  stone  hurled  down  the  side  of  the  hill  ?  Push  Him  back;  the  dead  must  not 
stalk  in  this  open  sunlight.  Oh,  it  is  our  Joshua.  Let  Him  come  out.  He  comes 
forth  and  starts  for  the  city.  He  takes  the  spear  of  the  Roman  guard  and  points 
that  way.  Church  militant  marches  up  on  one  side  and  the  Church  triumphant 
down  on  the  other  side.  And  the  powers  of  darkness  being  caught  between  these 
ranks  of  celestial  and  terrestrial  valor,  nothing  is  left  of  them  save  just  enough  to 
illustrate  the  direful  overthrow  of  hell  and  our  Joshua's  eternal  victory.  On  His 
head  be  all  the  crowns.  In  His  hand  be  all  the  sceptres.  At  His  feet  be  all  the 
human  hearts;  and  here,  Lord,  is  one  of  them. 


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(271) 


272 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


THE  TRIUMPH   OF  THE  WICKED. 


The  triumph  of  the  wicked  is  short.  Did  you  ever  see  an  army  in  a  panic  ? 
There  is  nothing  so  uncontrollable.  If  you  had  stood  at  Long  Bridge,  Washing- 
ton durino-  the  opening  of  our  Civil  War,  you  would  know  what  it  is  to  see  an 
army  run .  And  when  those  men  of  Ai  looked  out  and  saw  those  men  of  Joshua 
in  a  stampede,  they  expected  easy  work.     They  would  scatter  them  as  the  equinox 


IN    THK    HKAVK    DAYS    OF    OI,D. 

the  leaves.  Oh,  the  gleeful  and  jubilant  descent  of  the  men  of  Ai  upon  the  men 
of  Joshua!  But  their  exhilaration  was  brief,  for  the  tide  of  battle  turned  and  these 
quondam  conquerors  left  their  miserable  carcasses  in  the  wilderness  of  Bethaven. 
So  it  always  is.  The  triumph  of  the  wicked  is  short.  You  make  twenty  thousand 
dollars  at  the  gaming  table.     Do  you  expect  to  keep  it  ?     You  will  die  in  the  poor 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  273 

house.  You  make  a  fortune  by  iniquitous  traffic.  Do  you  expect  to  keep  it? 
Your  money  will  scatter,  or  it  will  stay  long  enough  to  curse  your  children  after 
you  are  dead.  Call  over  the  roll  of  bad  men  who  prospered  and  see  how  short 
was  their  prosperity.  For  a  while,  like  the  men  of  Ai,  they  went  from  conquest 
to  conquest,  but  after  a  while  disaster  rolled  back  upon  them  and  they  were  divided 
into  three  parts:  Misfortune  took  their  property,  and  the  grave  took  their  body, 
and  the  lost  world  took  their  soul.  I  am  always  interested  in  the  building  of 
theatres  and  the  building  of  dissipating  saloons.  I  like  to  have  them  built  of  the 
best  granite  and  have  the  rooms  made  large  and  to  have  the  pillars  made  very  firm. 
God  is  going  to  conquer  them,  and  they  will  be  turned  into  asylums  and  art  gal- 
leries and  churches.  The  stores  in  which  fraudulent  men  do  business,  the  splendid 
banking  institutions  where  the  president  and  cashier  put  all  their  propertj'-  in  their 
wives'  hands  and  then  fail  for  $200,000 — all  these  institutions  are  to  become  the 
places  where  honest  Christian  men  do  business.  Where  are  William  Tweed  and 
his  associates  ?  Where  are  Ketcham  and  Swartwout,  absconding  swindlers  ? 
Where  is  James  Fisk,  the  libertine?  Where  is  John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  assassin, 
and  all  the  other  misdemeanants  !  The  wicked  do  not  live  out  half  their  days. 
Disembogue,  O  world  of  darkness  !  Come  up  Hildebrand,  and  Henry  II.,  and 
Robert  Robespierre,  and  with  blistering  and  blaspheming  and  ashen  lips  hiss 
out:  ' '  The  triumph  of  the  wicked  is  short. ' '  Alas  for  the  men  of  Ai  when  Joshua 
stretches  out  his  spear  toward  the  city ! 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  TAKING  GOOD  AIM. 

In  the  strategem  by  which  Ai  was  captured  we  have  an  illustration  of  the 
importance  of  taking  good  aim — that  is,  of  thorough  preparation.  There  is  Joshua, 
but  how  are  those  people  in  ambush  up  yonder  to  know  w^hen  they  are  to  drop  on 
the  city  ?  and  how  are  these  men  around  Joshua  to  know  when  they  are  to  stop 
their  fight  and  advance  ?  There  must  be  some  signal — a  signal  to  stop  the  one 
division  and  to  start  the  other.  Joshua,  with  a  spear  on  which  were  ordinarily 
hung  the  colors  of  battle,  points  toward  the  city.  He  stands  in  such  a  conspicuous 
position,  and  there  is  so  much  of  the  morning  light  dripping  from  that  spear-tip 
that  all  around  the  horizon  can  see.  It  was  much  as  to  say:  "  There  is  the  city. 
Take  it.  Take  it  now.  Roll  down  from  the  west.  Surge  up  from  the  north.  It 
is  ours,  the  city  of  Ai."  God  knows  and  we  know  that  a  great  deal  of  Christian 
attack  amounts  to  nothing,  simply  because  we  do  not  take  good  aim.  Nobody 
knows,  and  we  do  not  know  ourselves,  which  point  we  want  to  take,  when  we 
ought  to  make  up  our  minds  what  God  will  have  us  to  do,  and  point  our  spear  in 
that  direction,  and  then  hurl  our  body,  mind,  soul,  time,  eternity  at  that  one  tar- 
get. Many  are  called  by  Christ,  as  was  Matthew,  but  few  leave  their  tithe- 
gathering,  or  their  worldly  engagements  to  follow  Him  who  gave  His  life  for  the 
18 


274 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


world.  In  our  pulpit  and  pews,  and  vSunday  schools  and  prayer  meetings,  we 
want  to  get  a  reputation  for  saying  pretty  things,  and  so  we  point  our  spear  toward 
the  flowers;  or  we  want  a  reputation  for  saying  sublime  things,  and  we  point  our 
spear  toward  the  stars;  or  we  want  to  get  a  reputation  for  historical  knowledge, 
and  we  point  our  spear  toward  the  past;  or  we  want  to  get  a  reputation  for  liber- 
ality, so  we  swing  our  spear  all  around;  and  it  strikes  all  points  of  the  horizon,  and 
you  can  make  out  of  it  whatever  you  please;  while  there  is  the  old  world,  proud, 

rebellious  and 
armed  against 
all  righteous- 
ness; and  instead 
of  running  any 
further  away 
from  its  pursuit, 
we  ought  to  turn 
around, plant 
our  foot  in  the 
strength  of  the 
eternal  God,  lift 
the  old  cross  and 
point  it  in  the 
direction  of  the 
world's  conquest 
till  the  redeemed 
of  earth,  march- 
ing up  from  one 

side  and  the  glorified  of  heaven  marching  down  from  the  other  side,  the  last 
battlement  of  sin  is  compelled  to  swing  out  the  streamers  of  Immanuel.  O  Church 
of  God,  take  aim  and  conquer. 

THE  BRAVERY  THAT  CONFRONTS  STEEL  AND    BULLET. 

It  is  comparatively  easy  to  keep  on  a  parade  amid  a  shower  of  bouquets  and 
handclapping  and  the  whole  street  full  of  huzzas,  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  stand  up 
in  the  day  of  battle,  the  face  blackened  with  smoke,  the  uniform  covered  with  the 
earth  plowed  up  by  whizzing  bullets  and  bursting  shells,  half  the  regiment  cut  to 
pieces,  and  yet  the  commander  crying:  "Forward,  march!"  Then  it  requires 
old-fashioned  valor.  IVIy  readers,  the  great  trouble  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  in 
this  day  is  the  cowards.  They  do  splendidly  on  a  parade  day,  and  at  the  com- 
munion, when  they  have  on  their  best  clothes  of  Christian  profession;  but  put 
them  out  in  the  great  battle  of  life,  at  the  first  sharpshooting  of  skepticism  they 


HUSBANX)I,Y  SYMPATHY. 


ES5 


276 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


dodge,  they  fall  back,  they  break  ranks.  We  confront  the  enemy,  we  open  the 
battle  against  fraud,  and  lo  !  we  find  on  our  side  a  great  many  people  that  do  not 
try  to  pay  their  debts.  And  we  open  the  battle  against  intemperance,  and  we  find 
on  our  own  side  a  great  many  people  who  drink  too  much.  And  we  open  the 
battle  against  profanity,  and  we  find  on  our  own  side  a  great  many  men  who  make 
hard  speeches.  And  we  open  the  battle  upon  infidelity,  and  lo !  we  find  on  our 
own  side  a  great  many  men  who  are  not  quite  sure  about  the  Book  of  Jonah. 
And  while  we  ought  to  be  massing  our  troops  and  bringing  forth  more  than  the 
united  courage  of  Austerlitz,  and  Waterloo,  and  Gettysburg,  we  have  to  be 
spending  our  time  hunting  up  ambuscades.  There  are  a  great  many  in  the 
Lord's  army  who  like  to  go  out  on  a  campaign  with  satin  slippers  and  holding 
umbrellas  over  their  heads  to  keep  off  the  dew,  and  having  rations  of  canvas-back 
ducks  and  lemon  custards.  If  they  cannot  have  them,  they  want  to  go  home. 
They  think  it  unhealthy  among  so  many  bullets  ! 

I  believe  that  the  next  twelve  months  will  be  the  most  stupendous  year  that 
Heaven  ever  saw.  The  nations  are  quaking  now  with  the  coming  of  God.  It 
will  be  a  year  of  successes  for  the  men  of  Joshua,  but  of  doom  for  the  men  of  Ai. 
Year  of  mercies  and  of  judgments.  Year  of  invitation  and  of  warning.  Year 
of  jubilee  and  of  woe.  Which  side  are  you  going  to  be  on  ? — with  the  men  of  Ai 
or  the  men  of  Joshua. 


®i5rn5iijeU^it<rn36i  <tt  il^^e^  M^^iti^nxi^xx^ 


THE  SPLENDORS  OF  THE  HEAVENS    COMPARED  WITH   THE 
GLORY  OF  THE  RIGHTEOUS. 

»cjVERY  man  has  a  thousand  roots  and  a  thousand  branches. 
His  roots  reach  down  through  all  the  earth ;  his  branches 
spread  through  all  the  heavens.  He  speaks  with  voice, 
with  eye,  with  hand,  with  foot.  His  silence  often  is 
thunder,  and  his  life  is  an  anthem  or  a  doxolog}-. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  negative  influence.  We  are 
all  positive  in  the  place  we  occupy,  making  the  world 
better  or  making  it  worse,  on  the  Lord's  side  or  on 
the  devil's,  making  up  reasons  for  our  blessedness  or 
banishment,  and  we  have  already  done  a  mighty  work 
in  peopling  heaven  or  hell.  I  hear  people  tell  of  what 
they  are  going  to  do.  A  man  who  has  burned  down  a 
city  might  as  well  talk  of  some  evil  that  he  expects  to  do, 
or  a  man  who  has  saved  an  empire  might  as  well  talk  of 
some  good  that  he  expects  to  do.  By  the  force  of  j-our 
evil  influence  you  have  already  consumed  infinite  values,  or 
'you  have,  by  the  power  of  a  right  influence,  won  whole  kingdoms  for  God. 
It  would  be  absurd  for  me  by  elaborate  argument  to  prove  that  the 
world  is  off  the  track.  You  might  as  well  stand  at  the  foot  of  an  em- 
bankment, amid  the  wreck  of  a  capsized  rail- train,  proving  by  elaborate 
argument  that  something  is  out  of  order.  Adam  tumbled  over  the  embankment 
sixty  centuries  ago,  and  the  whole  race,  in  one  long  train,  has  gone  on  tumbling 
in  the  same  direction.  Crash  !  crash  !  The  only  question  now  is,  bj^  what 
leverage  can  the  crushed  thing  be  lifted  ?  By  what  hammer  may  the  fragments 
be  reconstructed  ? 

I  want  to  show  you  how  we  may  turn  many  to  righteousness,  and  what  will 
be  our  future  pay  for  so  doing. 

We  may  turn  them  by  the  charm  of  a  right  example.  A  child,  coming  from 
a  filthy  home,  was  taught  at  school  to  wash  its  face.  It  went  home  so  much 
improved  in  appearance  that  its  mother  washed  her  face.  And  when  the  father 
of  the  household  came  home  and  saw  the  improvement  in  domestic  appearance, 

(277) 


278  THE  PATHWAY  OF  IJFE. 

he  washed  his  face.  The  neighbors  happening  in  saw  the  change,  and  tried  the 
same  experiment  until  all  that  street  was  purified,  and  the  next  street  copied  its 
example,  and  the  whole  city  felt  the  result  of  one  schoolbcjy  washing  his  face. 
That  is  a  fable  by  which  we  set  forth  that  the  best  way  to  get  the  world  washed 
of  its  sins  and  pollution  is  to  have  our  own  heart  and  hfe  cleansed  and  purified. 
A  man  with  grace  in  his  heart,  and  Christian  cheerfulness  in  his  face,  and  holy 
consistency  in  his  behavior,  is  a  perpetual  sermon;  and  the  sermon  differs  from 
others  in  that  it  has  but  one  head,  and  the  longer  it  runs  the  better.  There  are 
honest  men  who  walk  down  Wall  street,  making  the  teeth  of  iniquity  chatter. 
There  are  happy  men  who  go  into  a  sick-room,  and,  1)y  a  look,  help  the  broken 
bone  to  knit,  and  the  excited  nerves  drop  to  calm  beating.  There  are  pure  men 
whose  presence  silences  the  tongue  of  unclcanness.  The  mightiest  agent  of  good 
on  earth  is  a  consistent  Christian.  I  like  the  Bible  folded  between  lids  of  cloth,  or 
calfskin,  or  morocco,  but  I  like  it  better  when,  in  the  shape  of  a  man,  it  goes  out 
into  the  world — a  Bible  illustrated.  Courage  is  beautiful  to  read  about;  but 
rather  would  I  see  a  man  with  all  the  world  against  him  confident  as  though  all 
the  world  were  for  him.  Patience  is  beautiful  to  read  about;  but  rather  would  I 
see  a  buffeted  soul  calmly  waiting  for  the  time  of  deliverance.  Faith  is  beautiful 
to  read  about;  but  rather  would  I  find  a  man  in  the  midnight  walking  straight  on 
as  though  he  saw  everything.  Oh,  lunv  many  souls  have  been  turned  to  God  by 
the  charm  of  a  bright  example  ! 

THE  SWIFT  FEET  OF   PRAYER. 

When,  in  the  Mexican  War,  the  troops  were  wavering,  a  general  rose  in  his 
stirrups  and  da.shed  into  the  enemy's  lines,  shouting,  "Men,  follow!"  They, 
seeing  his  courage  and  disposition,  dashed  on  after  him  and  gained  the  victory. 
What  men  want  to  rally  them  for  God  is  an  example  to  lead  them.  All  your  com- 
mands to  others  to  advance  amount  to  nothing  so  long  as  you  stay  behind.  To 
affect  them  aright,  3'ou  need  to  start  for  heaven  yourself,  looking  back  only  to  give 
the  stirring  cry  of  "  Men,  follow  !" 

Again,  we  may  turn  many  to  righteousness  by  prayer.  There  is  no  such 
detective  as  prayer,  for  no  one  can  hide  away  from  it.  It  puts  its  hand  on  the 
shoulder  of  a  man  ten  thousand  miles  off.  It  alights  on  a  ship  mid-Atlantic.  The 
little  child  cannot  understand  the  law  of  electricity,  or  how  the  telegraphic  opera- 
tor, by  touching  the  instrument  here,  may  dart  a  message  luider  the  sea  to  another 
continent;  nor  can  we,  with  our  small  intellects,  understand  how  the  touch  of  a 
Christian's  prayer  shall  instantly  strike  a  soul  on  the  other  side  of  the  earth.  You 
take  ship  and  go  to  some  other  country,  and  get  there  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. You  telegraph  to  New  York,  and  the  message  gets  here  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
same  morning.      In  other  words,  it  seems  to  arrive  here  five  hours  before  it  started. 


A  i^ESSON  IN  ARITHMETIC— ^y?^r  a  Painting  by  L.  Kaufmann. 


(279) 


28o  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Ivike  that  is  prayer.  God  says:  "Before  they  call  I  will  hear."  To  overtake  a 
loved  one  on  the  road  you  may  spur  up  a  lathered  steed  until  he  shall  outrace  the 
one  that  brought  the  news  to  Ghent,  but  a  prayer  shall  catch  it  at  one  gallop.  A 
boy  running  away  from  home  may  take  the  midnight  train  from  the  country  vil- 
lage and  reach  the  seaport  in  time  to  gain  the  ship  that  sails  on  the  morrow,  but  a 
mother's  prayer  will  be  on  the  deck  to  meet  him,  and  in  the  hammock  before  he 
swings  into  it,  and  at  the  capstan  before  he  winds  the  rope  around  it,  and  on  the 
sea  against  the  sky,  as  the  vessel  plows  on  toward  it.  There  is  a  mightiness  in 
prayer.  George  Muller  prayed  a  company  of  poor  boys  together,  and  then  he 
prayed  up  an  asylum  in  which  they  might  be  sheltered.  He  turned  his  face 
toward  Edinburgh  and  prayed,  and  there  came  a  thousand  pounds.  He  turned 
his  face  toward  London  and  prayed,  and  there  came  a  thousand  pounds.  He 
turned  his  face  toward  Dublin  and  prayed,  and  there  came  a  thousand  pounds. 
The  breath  of  Elijah's  prayer  blew  all  the  clouds  off  the  sky,  and  it  was  dry 
weather.  The  breath  of  Elijah's  prayer  blew  all  the  clouds  together,  and  it  was 
wet  weather.  Prayer,  in  Daniel's  time,  walked  the  cave  as  a  lion-tamer.  It 
reached  up,  and  took  the  sun  by  its  golden  bit  and  stopped  it.  We  have  all  yet 
to  try  the  full  power  of  prayer.  The  time  will  come  when  the  American  Church 
will  pray  with  its  face  toward  the  West,  and  all  the  prairies  and  inland  cities  will 
surrender  to  God;  and  will  pray  with  face  toward  the  sea,  and  all  the  islands  and 
ships  will  become  Christian.  Parents  who  have  wayward  sons  will  get  down  on 
their  knees  and  say,  "  Lord,  send  my  boy  home,"  and  the  boy  in  Canton  shall 
get  right  up  from  the  gaming-table,  and  go  down  to  the  wharf  to  find  out  which 
ship  starts  first  for  America. 

HOW  TO   PRAY. 

Not  one  of  us  yet  knows  how  to  pray.  All  we  have  done  has  only  been  pot- 
tering and  guessing  and  experimenting.  A  boy  gets  hold  of  his  father's  saw  and 
hammer  and  tries  to  make  something,  but  it  is  a  poor  affair.  The  father  comes 
and  takes  the  same  saw  and  hammer  and  builds  the  house  or  the  ship.  In  the  child- 
hood of  our  Christian  faith  we  make  but  poor  work  with  these  weapons  of  prayer, 
but  when  we  come  to  the  stature  of  men  in  Christ  Jesus,  then,  under  these  imple- 
ments, the  temple  of  God  will  rise,  and  the  world's  redemption  will  be  launched. 
God  cares  not  for  the  length  of  our  prayers,  or  the  number  of  our  prayers,  or  the 
beauty  of  our  prayers,  or  the  place  of  our  prayers;  but  it  is  the  faith  in  them  that 
tells — believing  that  prayer  soars  higher  than  the  lark  ever  sang,  plunges  deeper 
than  diving-bell  ever  sank,  darts  quicker  than  lightning  ever  flashed.  Though  we 
have  used  only  the  back  of  this  weapon  instead  of  the  edge,  what  marvels  have 
been  wrought !  If  saved,  we  are  all  the  captives  of  some  earnest  prayer.  Would 
God  that,  in  desire  for  the  rescue  of  souls,  we  might  in  prayer  lay  hold  of  the 
resources  of  the  Lord  Omnipotent. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


281 


We  may  turn  many  to  righteousness  by  Christian  admonition.  Do  not  wait 
until  you  can  make  a  formal  speech.  Address  the  one  next  to  you.  Just  one  sen- 
tence may  do  the  work,  just  one  question,  just  one  look.     The  formal  talk  that 


THE   VOICE   OF   PRAYER. 


begins  wnth  a  sigh  and  ends  with  a  canting  snuffle  is  not  what  is  wanted,  but  the 
heart-throb  of  a  man  in  dead  earnest.  There  is  not  a  soul  on  earth  that  you  may 
not  bring  to  God  if  you  rightly  go  at  it.     They  said  Gibraltar  could  not  be  taken. 


282 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


It  is  a  rock  1600  feet  high  and  three  miles  long.  But  the  English  and  Dutch  did 
take  it.  Artillery,  and  sappers  and  miners,  and  fleets  pouring  out  volleys  of 
death,  and  thousands  of  men,  reckless  of  danger,  can  do  anything.     The  stoutest 


When  the  grave  household  'round  his  hall  repair, 
Warned  by  a  bell,  and  close  the  hours  with  pra3^er. 

heart  of  sin,  though   it  be  rock,  and  surrounded  by  an  ocean  of  transgression, 
under  Christian  bombardment,  may  be  made  to  hoist  the  flag  of  redemption. 

But  is  all  this  admonition,  and  prayer,  and  Christian  work  for  nothing?  The 
Bible  promises  to  all  the  faithful  eternal  lustre.  ' '  They  that  turn  many  to  righ- 
teousness shall  shine  as  the  stars  forever." 


(283) 


284  'I'HE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

As  stars  the  redeemed  have  a  borrowed  light.  What  makes  Mars,  and  Venus, 
and  Jupiter  so  luminous?  When  the  sun  throws  down  his  torch  in  the  heavens 
tlie  stars  pick  up  the  scattered  brands  and  hold  them  in  procession  as  the  queen  of 
the  night  advances;  so  all  Christian  workers  standing  around  the  throne  will  shine 
in  the  light  borrowed  from  the  Sun  of  Righteousness— Jesus  in  their  faces,  Jesus 
in  their  songs,  Jesus  in  their  triumph.  Christ  left  heaven  once  for  a  tour  of 
redemption  on  earth,  yet  the  glorified  ones  knew  He  would  come  back  again.  But 
let  Him  abdicate  His  throne,  and  go  away  to  stay  forever,  the  music  would  stop, 
the  congregation  disperse,  the  temples  of  God  be  darkened,  the  rivers  of  light 
stagnate,  and  every  chariot  would  become  a  hearse,  and  every  bell  would  toll,  and 
there  would  not  be  room  on  the  hillsides  to  bury  the  dead  of  the  great  metropolis, 
for  there  would  be  pestilence  in  heaven.  But  Jesus  lives,  and  so  all  the  redeemed 
live  with  Him.  He  shall  recognize  them  as  His  comrades  in  earthly  toil,  and 
remember  what  they  did  for  the  honor  of  His  name  and  for  the  spread  of  His  king- 
dom. All  their  prayers  and  tears  and  work  will  rise  before  Him  as  He  looks  into 
their  faces,  and  He  will  divide  His  kingdom  with  them;  His  peace,  their  peace; 
His  holiness,  their  holiness;  His  joy,  their  joy.  The  glor^'  of  the  central  throne 
reflected  from  the  surrounding  thrones,  the  last  spot  of  sin  struck  from  the  Chris- 
tian orb,  and  the  entire  nature  atremble  and  aflash  with  light,  they  shall  shine  as 
the  stars  forever  and  ever. 

LIKE  THE   STARS. 

Christian  workers  shall  be  like  the  stars  in  the  fact  that  they  have  a  light  inde- 
pendent of  each  other.  Look  up  at  the  night,  and  see  each  world  show  its  distinct 
glory.  It  is  not  like  the  conflagration,  in  which  you  cannot  tell  where  one  flame 
stops  and  another  begins.  Neptune,  Herschel,  and  Mercury  are  as  distinct  as  if 
each  one  of  them  were  the  only  star;  so  our  individualism  will  not  be  lost  in 
heaven.  A  great  multitude — yet  each  one  as  observable,  as  distinctly  recognized, 
as  greatly  celebrated,  as  if  in  all  the  space,  from  gate  to  gate,  and  from  hill  to  hill, 
he  were  the  only  inhabitant;  no  mixing  up — no  mob — no  indiscriminate  rush, 
each  Christian  standing  illustrious — all  the  story  of  earthly  achievement  adhering  to 
each  one.  His  self-denials,  and  pains,  and  services,  and  victories  pubHshed.  Before 
men  went  out  to  the  last  war  the  orators  told  them  that  they  would  all  be  remem- 
bered by  their  country,  and  their  names  are  commemorated  in  poetry  and  song; 
but  go  to  the  graveyard  in  Richmond,  and  you  will  find  there  6000  graves,  over 
each  one  of  which  is  the  inscription,  "  Unknown."  The  world  does  not  remem- 
ber its  heroes,  but  there  will  be  no  unrecognized  Christian  worker  in  heaven. 
Each  one  known  by  all,  grandly  known;  known  by  acclamation;  all  the  past  story 
of  work  for  God  gleaming  in  cheek,  and  brow,  and  foot,  and  palm.  They  shall 
shine  with  distinct  light  as  the  stars,  forever  and  ever. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  285 

Christian  workers  shall  shine  like  the  stars  in  clusters.  In  looking  up,  you 
find  the  worlds  in  family  circles.  Brothers  and  sisters — they  take  hold  of  each 
other's  hands  and  dance  in  groups.  Orion  in  a  group.  The  Pleiades  in  a  group. 
The  solar  system  is  only  a  company  of  children,  with  bright  faces,  gathered  around 
one  great  fire-place.  The  worlds  do  not  straggle  off.  They  go  in  squadrons  and 
fleets,  sailing  through  immensity. 

So  Christian  workers  in  heaven  will  dwell  in  neighborhoods  and  clusters.  I 
am  sure  that  some  people  I  will  like  in  heaven  a  great  deal  better  than  others. 
Yonder  is  a  constellation  of  stately  Christians.  They  live  on  earth  by  rigid  rule. 
They  never  laugh.  They  walk  every  hour,  anxious  lest  they  should  lose  their 
dignity.  But  they  loved  God;  and  yonder  they  shine  in  brilliant  constellation. 
Yet  I  shall  not  long  to  get  into  that  particular  group.  Yonder  is  a  constellation 
of  small-hearted  Christians — asteroids  in  the  eternal  astronomy.  While  some  souls 
go  up  from  Christian  battle,  and  blaze  like  Mars,  these  asteroids  dart  a  feeble  ray 
like  Vesta.  Yonder  is  a  constellation  of  martyrs,  of  apostles,  of  patriarchs.  Our 
souls,  as  they  go  up  to  heaven,  will  seek  out  the  most  congenial  society.  Yonder 
is  a  constellation  almost  merry  with  the  play  of  light.  On  earth  they  were  full  of 
sympathies  and  songs,  and  tears,  and  raptures,  and  congratulations.  When  they 
prayed,  their  words  took  fire;  when  they  sang,  the  tune  could  not  hold  them;  when 
they  wept  over  a  world's  woes,  they  sobbed  as  if  heart-broken;  when  they  worked 
for  Christ,  they  flamed  with  enthusiasm.  Yonder  they  are — circle  of  light !  Con- 
stellation of  joy  !  Galaxy  of  fire  !  Oh  that  you  and  I,  by  that  grace  which  can 
transform  the  worst  into  the  best,  might  at  last  sail  in  the  wake  of  that  fleet,  and 
wheel  in  that  glorious  group,  as  the  stars,  forever  and  ever. 

FLIGHT  OF  WORLDS. 

Christian  workers  will  shine  like  the  stars  in  swiftness  of  motion.  The  worlds 
do  not  stop  to  shine.  There  are  no  fixed  stars  save  as  to  relative  position.  The 
star  most  thoroughly  fixed  flies  thousands  of  miles  a  minute.  The  astronomer, 
using  his  telescope  for  an  Alpine  stock,  leaps  from  world-crag  to  world-crag,  and 
finds  no  star  standing  still.  The  chamois  hunter  has  to  fly  to  catch  his  prey,  but 
not  so  swift  is  his  game  as  that  which  the  scientist  tries  to  shoot  through  the  tower 
of  observatory.  Like  petrels,  mid- Atlantic,  that  seem  to  come  from  no  shore,  and 
be  bound  to  no  landing-place — flying,  flying — so  these  great  flocks  of  worlds  rest 
not  as  they  go — wing  and  wing — age  after  age — forever  and  ever.  The  eagle 
hastens  to  its  prey,  but  we  shall  in  speed  beat  the  eagles.  You  have  noticed  the 
velocity  of  the  swift  horse  under  whose  feet  the  miles  slip  like  a  smooth  ribbon, 
and  as  he  passes  the  four  hoofs  strike  the  earth  in  such  quick  beat,  your  pulses 
take  the  same  vibration.  But  all  these  things  are  not  swift  in  comparison  with 
the  motion  of  which  I  speak.     The  moon  moves  54,000  miles  in  a  day.     Yonder, 


2S6 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


Neptune  flashes  on  ii,ooo  miles  in  an  hour.  Yonder,  Mercury  goes  109,000  miles 
in  an  hour.  So,  like  the  stars,  the  Christian  worker  shall  shine  in  swiftness  of 
motion.  You  hear  now  of  fathei,  01  mother,  or  child  sick  1000  miles  away,  and 
it  takes  you  two  days  to  get  to  them.  You  hear  of  some  case  of  suffering  that 
demands  your  immediate  attention,  but  it  takes  you  an  hour  to  get  there.  Oh,  the 
joy  when  you  shall  take  starry  speed,  and  be  equal  to  100,000  miles  an  hour. 
Having  on  earth  got  used  to  Christian  work,  you  will  not  quit  when  death  strikes 


BLESSED  ARE  THE  PURE  IN  HEART. — Fvoin  a  Painting  by  Rubens. 

you.  You  will  only  take  on  more  velocity.  There  is  a  dying  child  in  lyOndon, 
and  its  spirit  must  be  taken  up  to  God:  jon  are  there  in  an  instant  to  do  it.  There 
is  a  young  man  in  New  York  to  be  arrested  from  going  into  that  gate  of  sin:  you 
are  there  in  an  instant  to  arrest  him.  All  space  open  before  you,  with  nothing  to 
hinder  yoii  in  mission  of  light,  and  love,  and  joy,  you  shall  shine  in  swiftness  of 
motion  as  the  stars,  forever  and  ever. 


Niobe  was  the  wife  of  Amphion,  King  of  Thebes,  whose  pride  in  her  children  provoked  Diana  and  Apollo  to 
slay  them.     Her  grief  was  so  great  that  poets  represented  her  as  being  turned  into  stone. 

(287) 


288  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Christian  workers,  like  the  stars,  shall  shine  in  magnitude.  The  most 
illiterate  man  knows  that  these  things  in  the  sky,  looking  like  gilt  buttons,  are 
great  masses  of  matter.  To  weigh  them,  one  would  think  that  it  would  require 
scales  with  a  pillar  hundreds  of  thousands  of  miles  high,  and  chains  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  miles  long,  and  at  the  bottom  of  the  chains  basins  on  either  side 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  miles  wide,  and  that  then  Omnipotence  alone  could  put 
the  mountains  into  the  scales  and  the  hills  into  the  balance.  But  puny  man  has 
been  equal  to  the  undertaking,  and  has  set  a  little  balance  on  his  geometry,  and 
weighed  world  against  world.  Yes,  he  has  pulled  out  his  measuring  line  and 
announced  that  Herschel  is  36,000  miles  in  diameter,  Saturn  79,000  miles  in 
diameter,  and  Jupiter  89,000  miles  in  diameter,  and  that  the  smallest  pearl  on  the 
beach  of  heaven  is  immense  beyond  all  imagination.  So  all  they  who  have  toiled 
for  Christ  on  earth  shall  rise  up  to  a  magnitude  of  privilege,  and  a  magnitude 
of  strength,  and  a  magnitude  of  holiness,  and  a  magnitude  of  joy;  and  the 
weakest  saint  in  glory  becomes  greater  than  all  we  can  now  imagine  of  an  archangel. 

A  GLORY  THAT  NEVER  FADES. 

It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be.  Wisdom  that  shall  know  every- 
thing; wealth  that  shall  possess  everything;  strength  that  shall  do  everything; 
glory  that  shall  circumscribe  everything  !  We  shall  not  be  like  a  taper  set  in  a 
sick  man's  window,  or  a  bundle  of  sticks  kindled  on  the  beach  to  warm  a  shiver- 
ing crew;  but  you  must  take  the  diameter  and  the  circumference  of  the  world  if  you 
would  get  any  idea  of  the  greatness  of  our  estate  when  we  shall  shine  as  the  stars, 
forever  and  ever. 

Lastly,  and  coming  to  this  point  my  mind  almost  breaks  down  under  the  con- 
templation— like  the  stars,  all  Christian  workers  shall  shine  in  duration.  The 
same  stars  that  look  down  upon  us  looked  down  upon  the  Chaldean  shepherds. 
The  meteor  that  I  saw  flashing  across  the  sky  the  other  night,  I  wonder  if  it  was 
not  the  same  one  that  pointed  down  to  where  Jesus  lay  in  the  manger,  and  if, 
having  pointed  out  His  birthplace,  it  has  ever  since  been  wandering  through  the 
heavens,  watching  to  see  how  the  world  would  treat  Him.  When  Adam  awoke 
in  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day,  he  saw  coming  out  through  the  dusk  of  the 
evening  the  same  worlds  that  greet  us  now. 

The  star  at  which  the  mariner  looks  to-night  was  the  light  by  which  the 
ships  of  Tarshish  were  guided  across  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Venetian  flotilla 
found  its  way  into  Lepanto.  Their  armor  is  as  bright  to-night  as  when,  in 
ancient  battle,  the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  Sisera.  To  the  ancients 
the  stars  were  symbols  of  eternity.  But  here  the  figure  entirely  breaks  down — 
not  in  defeat,  but  in  the  majesties  of  the  judgment.  The  stars  shall  not  shine 
forever.      The   Bible  says  they   shall  fall    like  autumnal   leaves.      It   is   almost 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


2S9 


impossible  for  a  man  to  take  in  a  courser  going  a  mile  in  three  minutes;  but  God 
shall  take  in  the  worlds,  flying  a  hundred  thousand  miles  an  hour,  b}^  one  pull  of 
His  little  finger.  As,  when  the  factory  band  slips  at  night-fall  from  the  main 
wheel,  all  the  smaller  wheels  slacken  their  speed,  and  with  slower  and  slower 
motion  they  turn  until  they  come  to  a  full  stop,  so  this  great  machinery  of  the 
universe,  wheel  within  wheel,  making  revolution  of  appalling  speed,  shall  by  the 
touch  of  God's  hand  slip  the  band  of  present  law  and  slacken  and  stop.  That  is 
what  will  be  the  matter  with  the  mountains.  The  chariots  in  which  they  ride 
shall  halt  so  suddenly  that  the  kings  shall  be  thrown  out.  Star  after  star  shall  be 
carried  out  to  burial  amid  funeral  torches  and  burning  worlds.  But  the  Christian 
workers  shall  never  quit  their  thrones— they  shall  reign  forever  and  ever.  If,  b}- 
some  invasion  from  hell,  the  attempt  were  made  to  carry  them  off  into  captivity 
from  heaven,  the  redeemed,  on  white  horses  of  victory,  would  ride  down  the  foe, 
and  all  the  steep  of  the  sky  would  resound  with  the  crash  of  the  overwhelmed 
cohorts  tumbled  headlong  out  of  heaven. 


30 


I^ottjr  icr  Prolong   WHi^. 


PRACTICAL  HINTS  AND   EXAMPLES  BY  WHICH  OUR  DAYS  MAY  BE 
BOTH   LENGTHENED  AND   BLESSED. 

the  mistake  of  its  friends  religion  has  been  chiefly  associated 
with  sick  beds  and  graveyards.  The  whole  subject  to  many 
people  is  odorous  with  cholorine  and  carbolic  acid.  There  are 
people  who  cannot  pronounce  the  word  religion  without  hear- 
ing in  it  the  clipping  chisel  of  the  tombstone  cutter.  It  is  high 
time  that  this  thing  were  changed,  and  that  religion,  instead  of 
being  represented  as  a  hearse  to  carry  out  the  dead,  should  be 
represented  as  a  chariot  in  which  the  living  are  to  triumph. 

Religion,  so  far  from  subtracting  from  one's  vitalit}^  is  a  glorious 
addition.  It  is  sanative,  curative,  hygienic.  It  is  good  for  the  eyes, 
good  for  the  ears,  good  for  the  spleen,  good  for  the  digestion,  good 
for  the  nerves,  good  for  the  muscles.  When  David  prayed  that 
religion  might  be  dominant,  he  did  not  speak  of  it  as  a  mild  sick- 
ness, or  an  emaciation,  or  an  attack  of  moral  and  spiritual  cramp; 
he  spoke  of  it  as  "the  saving  health  of  all  nations;"  while  God 
promises  longevity  to  the  pious,  saying:  "With  long  life  I  will 
satisfy  him." 

The  fact  is  that  men  and  women  die  too  soon.  It  is  high  time  that  religion 
joined  the  hand  of  medical  science  in  attempting  to  improve  human  longevity, 
Adam  lived  930  years.  Methuselah  lived  969  3'ears.  As  late  in  the  history^  of  the 
world  as  Vespasian  there  were  at  one  time  in  his  empire  forty-five  people  135  years 
of  age.  So  far  down  as  the  sixteenth  century,  Peter  Zartan  died  at  185  years  of 
age.  I  do  not  say  that  religion  will  ever  take  the  race  back  to  antediluvian 
longevity,  but  I  do  say  the  length  of  human  life  will  be  greatly  improved. 

MERE  DWARFS. 

It  is  said  in  Isaiah:  "The  child  shall  die  a  hundred  years  old."  Now,  if 
according  to  Scripture  the  child  is  to  be  a  hundred  years  old,  may  not  the  men  and 
women  reach  to  300,  and  400  and  500  ?  The  fact  is  that  we  are  mere  dwarfs  and 
skeletons  compared  with  some  of  the   generations  that   are  to  come.     Take  the 

(290) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  291 

African  race.  They  have  been  under  bondage  for  centuries.  Give  them  a  chance 
and  they  develop  a  Frederick  Douglass  or  a  Toussaint  L' Overture.  And  if  the 
white  race  shall  be  brought  from  under  the  serfdom  of  sin,  what  shall  be  the 
body?  What  shall  be  the  soul?  Religion  has  only  just  touched  our  world. 
Give  it  full  power  for  a  few  centuries,  and  who  can  tell  what  will  be  the  strength 
of  man  and  the  beauty  of  woman,  and  the  longevity  of  all. 

My  design  is  to  show  that  practical  religion  is  the  friend  of  long  life.  1 
prove  it,  first,  from  the  fact  that  it  makes  the  care  of  our  health  a  positive  Christian 
duty.  Whether  we  shall  keep  early  or  late  hours,  whether  we  shall  take  food 
digestible  or  indigestible,  whether  there  shall  be  thorough  or  incomplete  mastica- 
tion, are  questions  very  often  deferred  to  the  realm  of  whimsicality;  but  the 
Christian  man  lifts  this  whole  problem  of  health  into  the  accountable  and  the 
divine.  He  says:  "  God  has  given  me  this  bodj^  and  he  has  called  it  the  temple 
of  the  H0I3'  Ghost,  and  to  deface  its  altars  or  mar  its  walls  or  crumble  its  pillars  is 
a  God-defying  sacrilege."  He  sees  God's  calligraphy  in  every  page — anatomical 
and  physiological.  He  says:  "  God  has  given  me  a  wonderful  body  for  noble 
purposes." 

That  arm  with  thirty-two  curious  bones  wielded  by  forty-six  curious  muscles, 
and  all  under  the  brain's  telegraphy;  350  pounds  of  blood  rushing  through  the 
heart  every  hour,  the  heart  in  twenty-four  hours  beating  100,000  times,  during 
the  twenty-four  hours  overcoming  resistances  amounting  to  224,000,000  pounds  of 
weight,  during  the  same  time  the  lungs  taking  in  fifty-seven  hogsheads  of  air,  and 
all  this  mechanism  not  more  mighty  than  delicate  and  easily  disturbed  and 
demolished. 

The  Christian  man  says  ro  nimself:  "  If  I  hurt  my  nerv^es,  if  I  hurt  my  brain, 
if  I  hurt  any  of  ni}^  physical  faculties,  I  insult  God  and  call  for  dire  retribution." 
Why  did  God  tell  the  I^evites  not  to  offer  to  Him  in  sacrifice  animals  imperfect  and 
diseased  ?  He  meant  to  tell  us  in  all  the  ages  that  we  are  to  offer  to  God  our  very 
best  physical  condition,  and  a  man  who,  through  irregular  or  gluttonous  eating, 
ruins  his  health,  is  not  offering  to  God  such  a  sacrifice.  Why  did  Paul  write  for 
his  cloak  at  Troas  ?  Why  should  such  a  great  man  as  Paul  be  anxious  about  a 
thing  so  insignificant  as  an  overcoat  ?  It  was  because  he  knew  that  with  pneu- 
monia and  rheumatism  he  would  not  be  worth  half  as  much  to  God  and  the 
Church  as  with  respiration  easy  and  foot  free. 

PHYSICAL  HEALTH. 

An  intelligent  Christian  man  would  consider  it  an  absurdity  to  kneel  down  at 
night  and  pray  and  ask  God's  protection  while  at  the  same  time  he  kept  the  win- 
dows of  his  bedroom  tight  shut  against  fresh  air.  He  would  just  as  soon  think 
of  going  out  on  the  bridge  between  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  leaping  off  and  then 


292  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

praying  to  God  to  keep  him  from  getting  hurt.  Just  as  long  as  you  defer  this 
whole  subject  of  physical  health  to  the  realm  of  whimsicality,  or  to  the  pastry 
cook,  or  to  the  butcher,  or  to  the  baker,  or  to  the  apothecary,  or  to  the  clothier, 
you  are  not  acting  like  a  Christian.  Take  care  of  all  of  your  physical  forces — 
nervous,  muscular,  bone,  brain,  cellular  tissue — for  al]  3'ou  must  be  brought  to 
judgment. 

Smoking  your  nervous  system  into  fidgets,  burning  out  the  coating  of  your 
stomach  with  wine,  logwooded  and  strychnined,  walking  with  thin  shoes  to  make 
your  feet  look  delicate,  pinched  at  the  waist  until  you  are  nigh  cut  in  two,  and 
neither  part  worth  anything,  groaning  about  sick  headache  and  palpitation  of  the 
heart,  which  you  think  came  from  God,  when  they  came  from  your  own  foll3\ 
When  the  doorkeeper  of  Congress  fell  dead  from  excessive  joy  because  Burgoyne 
had  surrendered  at  vSaratoga,  and  Philip  the  Fifth,  of  Spain,  dropped  dead  at  the 
news  of  his  country's  defeat  in  battle,  and  Cardinal  Wolsey  expired  as  a  result  of 
Henry  the  Eighth's  anathema,  it  was  demonstrated  that  the  body  and  soul  are 
Siamese  twins,  and  when  you  thrill  the  one  with  joy  or  sorrow  you  thrill  the 
other.  We  might  as  well  recognize  the  tremendous  fact  that  there  are  two  mighty 
fortresses  in  the  human  body,  the  heart  and  the  liver;  the  heart  the  fortress  of  all 
the  graces,  the  liver,  the  fortress  of  all  the  furies. 

What  right  has  any  man  or  woman  to  deface  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost? 
What  is  the  ear?  Why,  it  is  the  whispering  gallerj-  of  the  human  soul.  What  is 
the  eye  ?  It  is  the  observatory  God  constructed,  its  telescope  sweeping  the  heavens. 
What  is  the  hand  ?  An  instrument  so  wonderful  that  when  the  Earl  of  Bridge- 
water  bequeathed  in  his  will  $40,000  for  treatises  to  be  written  on  the  wisdom, 
power  and  goodness  of  God,  Sir  Charles  Bell,  the  great  English  anatomist  and 
surgeon,  found  his  greatest  illustration  in  the  construction  of  the  human  hand, 
devoting  his  whole  book  to  that  subject.  So  wonderful  are  these  bodies  that  God 
names  His  own  attributes  after  different  parts  of  them.  His  omniscience — it  is 
God's  eye.  His  omnipresence — it  is  God's  ear.  His  omnipotence — it  is  God's 
arm.  The  upholstery  of  the  midnight  heavens — it  is  the  work  of  God's  fingers. 
His  life-giving  power — it  is  the  breath  of  the  Almighty.  His  dominion — "The 
government  shall  be  upon  His  shoulders."  A  body  so  divinely  honored  and  so 
divinely  constructed — let  us  be  careful  not  to  abuse  it. 

When  it  becomes  a  Christian  duty  to  take  care  of  our  health,  is  not  the  whole 
tendency  toward  longevity?  If  I  toss  my  watch  about  recklessly  and  drop  it  on. 
the  pavemp'-.  and  wind  it  up  any  time  of  day  or  night  I  happen  to  think  of  it, 
and  often  let  it  run  down,  while  you  are  careful  with  your  watch  and  never  abuse 
it,  and  wind  it  up  just  at  the  same  hour  every  night  and  put  it  in  a  place  where  it 
will  not  suffer  from  the  violent  changes  of  atmosphere,  which  watch  will  last  the 
longer?     Common  sense  answers.     Now,  the  human  body  is  God's  watch.     You 


THE   PROPOSAI,. 


[293) 


294  THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 

see  the  hands  of  the  watch,  you  see  the  face  of  the  watch,  but  the  beating  of  the 
heart  is  the  ticking  of  the  watch.     Oh,  be  careful  and  do  not  let  it  run  down  ! 

DISSIPATIONS   THAT    DESTROY    HEALTH. 

Practical  religion  is  a  friend  of  longevity  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  protest  against 
dissipations  which  injure  and  destroy  the  health.  Bad  men  and  women  liveaver>- 
short  life.  Their  sins  kill  them.  I  know  hundreds  of  good  old  men,  but  I  do  not 
know  half  a  dozen  bad  old  men.  Why  ?  They  do  not  get  old.  Lord  Byron  died 
at  Missolonghi  at  thirty-six  years  of  age,  himself  his  own  Mazeppa,  his  unbridled 
passions  the  horse  that  dashed  with  him  into  the  desert.  Edgar  Allan  Poe  died  at 
Baltimore  at  thirty-eight  years  of  age.  The  black  raven  that  alighted  on  the  bust 
above  his  chamber  door  was  delirium  tremens — 

Ouly  this  and  nothing  more. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  lived  only  just  beyond  mid-life,  and  died  at  St.  Helena, 
and  one  of  the  docters  said  that  his  disease  was  induced  by  excessive  snuffing.  The 
hero  of  Austerlitz,  the  man  who  by  one  step  of  his  foot  in  the  centre  of  Europe 
shook  the  earth,  killed  by  a  snuff"- box  !  Oh,  how  many  people  we  have  known 
who  have  not  lived  out  half  their  days  because  of  their  dissipations  and  indul- 
gences !    Now  practical  religion  is  a  protest  against  all  dissipation  of  any  kind. 

"But,"  you  say,  "  professors  of  religion  have  fallen,  professors  of  religion 
have  got  drunk,  professors  of  religion  have  misappropriated  trust  funds,  professors 
of  religion  have  absconded."  Yes,  but  they  threw  away  their  religion  before  they 
did  their  morality.  If  a  man  on  a  White  Star  Line  steamer  bound  for  Liverpool  in 
mid- Atlantic  jumps  overboard  and  is  drowned,  is  that  anything  against  the  White 
Star  Line's  capacity  to  take  the  man  across  the  ocean  ?  And  if  a  man  jumps  over 
the  gunwale  of  his  religion  and  goes  down  never  to  rise,  is  that  any  reason  for 
your  believing  that  religion  has  no  capacity  to  take  the  man  clear  through  ?  In 
the  one  case  if  he  had  kept  to  the  steamer  his  body  would  have  been  saved;  in  the 
other  case  if  he  had  kept  to  his  religion  his  morals  would  have  been  saved. 

There  are  aged  people  who  would  have  been  dead  twenty-five  years  ago  but 
for  the  defences  and  equipoise  of  religion.  You  have  no  more  natural  resistance 
than  hundreds  of  people  who  lie  in  the  cemeteries  to-daj^  slain  by  their  own 
vices.  The  doctors  made  their  case  as  kind  and  pleasant  as  they  could,  and  it  was 
called  congestion  of  the  brain,  or  something  else,  but  the  snakes  and  the  blue  flies 
that  seemed  to  crawl  over  the  pillow  in  the  sight  of  the  delirous  patient  showed 
what  was  the  matter  with  him.  You,  the  aged  Christian  man,  walked  along  by 
that  unhappy  one  until  you  came  to  the  golden  pillar  of  a  Christian  life.  You 
went  to  the  right;  he  went  to  the  left.  That  is  all  the  difference  between  you.  Oh, 
if  this  religion  is  a  protest  against  all  forms  of  dissipation,  then  it  is  an  illustrious 
friend  of  longevity.      "  With  long  life  will  I  satisfy  him." 


THE   BlyOOM   OF   HEALTH   AND   THE  WHISPER  OF   LOVE. 


(295) 


296 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


I  WORRY   AND    TROUBLE. 

Religion  is  a  friend  of  longevity  in  the  fact  that  it  takes  the  worry  out  of  our 
temporalities.  It  is  not  work  that  kills  men;  it  is  worry.  When  a  man  becomes 
a  genuine  Christian  he  makes  over  to  God  not  only  his  affections,  but  his  family, 
his  business,  his  reputation,  his  body,  his  mind,  his  soul — everything.  Industri- 
ous he  will  be,  but  never  worrying,  because  God  is  managing  his  affairs.  How 
can  he  worry  about  business,  when  in  answer  to  his  prayers  God  tells  him  when 
to  buy  and  when  to  sell;  and  if  he  gain  that  is  best,  and  if  he  lose  that  is  best? 
Suppose  you  had  a  supernatural  neighbor  who  came  in  and  said: 

"  Sir,  I  want  you  to  call  on  me  in  every  exigency;  I  am  your  fast  friend;  I 
could  fall  back  on  $20,000,000;  I  can  foresee  a  panic  ten  years;  I  hold  the  controll- 
ing stock  in  thirty  of  the  best  monetary  institutions  of  New  York:  whenever  you 


THH    HPAIJNC,    HA.ND  — CLEANSING  THE   LEPER. 

are  in  trouble  call  on  me  and  I  will  help  you;  5'ou  can  have  my  money  and  you 
can  have  my  influence;  here  is  my  hand  in  pledge  for  it." 

How  much  would  you  worry  about  business?  Why,  you  would  say:  "I'll 
do  the  best  I  can,  and  then  I'll  depend  on  my  friend's  generosity  for  the  rest." 

Now,  more  than  that  is  promised  to  every  Christian  business  man.  God  says 
to  him:  "  I  own  New  York,  and  London,  and  St.  Petersburg,  and  Pekin;  and  Aus- 
tralia and  California  are  mine;  I  can  foresee  a  panic  a  million  years:  I  have  all 
the  resources  of  the  universe,  and  I  am  your  fast  friend;  when  you  get  in  business 
trouble,  or  any  other  trouble,  call  on  Me  and  I  will  help;  here  is  My  hand  in  pledge 
of  omnipotent  deliverance." 

How  much  should  that  man  worry  ?  Not  much.  What  lion  will  dare  to  put  his 
paw  on  that  Daniel  ?   Is  there  not  rest  in  this  ?  Is  there  not  an  eternal  vacation  in  this  ? 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFK 


297 


going 
plays 
plays 


"  Oh, "  you  say ;  ' '  here  is  a 
man  who  asked  God  for  a  bless- 
ing in  a  certain  enterprise,  and 
he  lost  $5000  in  it.  Explain 
that."  I  v/ill.  Yonder  is  a  fac- 
tory, and  one  wheel  is  going 
north  and  the  other  wheel  is 
south,  and  one  wheel 
laterally  and  the  other 
vertically.  I  go  to  the 
manufacturer  and  I  say :  "  O 
manufacturer,  your  machinery  is 
a  contradiction.  Why  do  you 
not  make  all  the  wheels  go  one 
way  ?" 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  made 
them  go  in  opposite  directions 
on  purpose,  and  they  produce 
the  right  result.  You  go  down 
stairs  and  examine  the  carpets 
we  are  turning  out  in  this  estab- 
lishment and  you  will  see."  I 
go  down  on  the  other  floor  and 
I  see  the  carpets,  and  I  am  obliged 
to  confess  that  though  the  wheels 
in  that  factory  go  in  opposite 
directions,  they  turn  out  a  beau- 
tiful result;  and  while  I  am 
standing  there  looking  at  the 
exquisite  fabric  an  old  Scripture 
passage  comes  into  my  mind: 
' '  All  things  work  together  for 
good  to  them  who  love  God." 
Is  there  not  rest  in  that  ?  Is 
there  not  tonic  in  that  ?  Is  there 
not  longevity  in  that  ? 

There  is  a  kind  of  sickness 
that  is  beautiful  when  it  comes 
from  overwork  for  God,  or  one's 
country,  or  one's  own  family.     I 


REVERENCE.-  After  the  Sculpture  of  C.  B.  Birch. 


298  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

have  seen  wounds  that  were  glorious.  After  the  battle  of  Antietam,  in  the  hospital 
a  soldier  in  reply  to  my  question:  "Where  are  you  hurt?"  uncovered  his  bosom 
and  showed  me  a  gash  that  looked  like  a  badge  of  eternal  nobility.  I  have  seen 
an  empty  sleeve  that  was  more  beautiful  than  the  most  muscular  forearm.  I  have 
seen  a  green  shade  over  the  eye  shot  out  in  battle  that  was  more  beautiful  than 
any  two  eyes  that  had  passed  without  injury.  1  have  seen  an  old  missionary, 
worn-out  with  the  malaria  of  African  jungles,  who  looked  more  radiant  to  me 
than  a  rubicund  gymnast.  I  have  seen  a  mother,  after  a  six  weeks'  watching 
over  a  family  of  children  down  with  the  scarlet  fever,  with  a  glory  around  her  pale 
and  wan  face  that  surpassed  the  angelic.  It  all  depends  on  how  you  got  your 
sickness  and  in  what  battle  your  wounds.  Frederick  T.  Frelinghuysen,  the  pride 
of  New  Jersey — ay,  of  the  nation — and  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  for  nearly  four  years  practically  President  of  the  United  States,  although  in 
the  office  of  Secretary  of  State,  in  his  determination  to  make  peace  with  all  the 
governments  on  this  American  continent,  wore  himself  out,  and  while  his  brain 
was  as  keen  as  it  ever  was,  and  his  heart  beat  as  regularly  as  it  ever  did,  he  was, 
according  to  the  bulletins  of  his  physicians  at  Washington  and  Newark,  dying 
of  hardening  of  the  liver.  Satan,  who  does  not  like  good  men,  sent  a  darl 
through  his  liver.  The  last  my  dear  friend — for  he  was  my  friend  and  my  father's 
friend  before  me — the  last  he  was  seen  in  Washington  was  in  the  President's 
carriage,  leaning  his  head  against  the  shoulder  of  the  President,  on  his  way  to  the 
depot  to  take  the  train  to  go  home  to  die.  Martyr  of  the  public  service,  he  died 
for  his  country,  though  he  died  in  time  of  peace.  In  his  earlier  life  he  was 
called  the  nephew  of  his  uncle,  Theodore  Frelinghuysen,  but  he  lived  to 
render  for  God  and  his  country  a  service  that  will  make  others  proud  to  be 
his  nephew,  and  which  will  keep  his  name  on  the  scroll  of  history  as  the 
highest  style  of  Christian  statesman  that  this  century  or  any  other  century  has 
produced. 

COMFORTING  ASSURANCES. 

Practical  religion  is  a  friend  of  longevity  in  the  fact  that  it  removes  all  cor- 
roding care  about  a  future  existence.  Every  man  wants  to  know  what  is  to  become 
of  him.  If  you  get  on  board  a  rail  train  you  want  to  know  at  what  depot  it  is  going 
to  stop;  if  you  get  on  board  a  ship  you  want  to  know  into  what  harbor  it  is  going 
to  run,  and  if  you  should  tell  me  you  have  no  interest  in  what  is  to  be  your  future 
destiny,  I  would,  in  as  polite  way  as  I  know  how,  tell  you  I  did  not  believe  you. 
Before  I  had  this  matter  settled  with  reference  to  my  future  existence,  the  question 
almost  worried  me  into  ruined  health.  The  anxieties  men  have  upon  this  subject 
put  together  would  make  a  martyrdom.  This  is  a  state  of  awful  unhealthiness. 
There  are  people  who  fret  themselves  to  death  for  fear  of  dying.  I  want  to  take  the 
Strain  off  your  nerves  and  the  depression  off  your  soul,  and  I  make  two  or  three 
experiments. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


299 


Experiment  First:  When  you  go  out  of  this  world  it  does  not  make  any  dif- 
ference whether  you  have  been  good  or  bad,  or  whether  you  believe  truth  or  error, 
you  will  go  straight  to  glor}\ 

"Impossible,"  you  say;  "  my  common  sense  as  well  as  my  religion  teaches 
me  that  the  bad  and  the  good  cannot  live  together  forever.  You  give  me  no  com- 
fort in  that  experiment." 

Experiment  Second:  When  3'ou  leave  this  world  ^-ou  will  go  into  an  inter- 
mediate state,  where  j^ou  can  get  converted  and  prepared  for  heaven. 


"PEACE   BE    STILL." 

*'  Impossible,"  you  say;  "  as  the  tree  falleth  so  it  must  lie,  and  I  cannot  post- 
pone to  an  intermediate  state  reformation  which  ought  to  have  been  effected  in  this 
State." 

Experiment  Third:  There  is  no  future  w^orld;  when  a  man  dies  that  is  the 
last  of  him.  Do  not  worry  about  what  you  are  to  do  in  another  state  of  being; 
you  will  not  do  anything. 

"  Impossible,"  3^ou  say;  "  there  is  something  that  tells  me  that  death  is  not 
the  appendix,  but  the  preface;  there  is  something  that  tells  me  that  on  this  side  of 


300  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

the  grave  I  onl}-  get  started,  and  that  I  shall  go  on  fore\er;  my  power  to  think 
says,  'forever';  my  affections  say,  'forever';  my  capacity  to  enjoy  or  suffer, 
*  forever,'  " 

Well,  you  defeat  me  in  my  three  experiments.  I  have  only  one  more  to 
make,  and  if  you  defeat  me  in  that  I  am  exhausted:  A  mighty  One,  on  a  knoll 
back  of  Jerusalem,  one  day,  the  skies  filled  with  forked  lightnings  and  the  earth 
filled  with  volcanic  disturbances,  turned  His  pale  and  agonized  face  tow^ard  the 
heavens,  and  said:  I  take  the  sins  and  sorrows  of  the  ages  into  My  own  heart.  I 
am  the  expiation.     Witness  earth  and  heaven  and  hell,  I  am  the  expiation. 

And  the  hammer  struck  Him,  and  the  spears  punctured  Him,  and  heaven 
thundered:  "The  wages  of  sin  is  death  !"  "  The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die  !" 
"  I  will  by  no  means  clear  the  guilty  !"  Then  there  was  silence  for  half  an  hour, 
and  the  lightnings  were  drawn  back  into  the  scabbard  of  the  sky,  and  the  earth 
ceased  to  quiver  and  all  the  colors  of  the  sky  began  to  shift  themselves  into  a 
rainbow  woven  out  of  the  falling  tears  of  Jesus,  and  there  was  red  as  of  the  blood- 
shedding,  and  there  was  blue  as  of  the  bruising,  and  there  was  green  as  of  the 
heavenly  foliage,  and  there  was  orange  as  of  the  day-dawn.  And  along  the  line 
of  the  blue  I  saw  the  words:  "I  was  bruised  for  their  iniquities."  And  along 
the  line  of  the  red  I  saw  the  words:  ' '  The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  from  all 
sin."  And  along  the  line  of  the  green  I  saw  the  words:  "  The  leaves  of  the  tree 
of  life  for  the  healing  of  the  nations."  And  along  the  line  of  the  orange  I  saw 
the  words:   "  The  day-spring  from  on  high  hath  visited  us." 

THE  SACRIFICE  TO  ACCEPT. 

And  then  I  saw  the  storm  was  over,  and  the  rainbow  rose  higher  and  higher 
until  it  seemed  retreating  to  another  heaven,  and  planting  one  column  of  its  colors 
on  one  side  the  eternal  hill,  and  planting  the  other  column  of  its  colors  on  the 
other  side  the  eternal  hill,  it  rose  upward  and  upward,  "  and  behold  there  was  a 
rambow  about  the  throne." 

Accept  this  sacrifice  and  quit  worrying.  Take  the  tonic,  the  inspiration,  the 
longevity  of  this  truth.  Religion  is  sunshine;  that  is  health.  Religion  is  fresh 
air  and  pure  water.  Religion  is  warmth;  that  is  healthy.  Ask  all  the  doctors 
and  they  will  tell  you  that  a  quiet  conscience  and  pleasant  anticipations  are 
hygienic.     I  offer  you  perfect  peace  now  and  hereafter. 

What  do  you  want  in  the  future  world  ?  Tell  me  and  you  shall  have  it. 
Orchards  ?  There  are  the  trees  with  twelve  manner  of  fruits,  yielding  fruit  every 
month.  Water  scenery  ?  There  is  the  River  of  Life,  from  under  the  throne  of 
God,  clear  as  crj^stal,  and  the  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire.  Do  you  want  music  ? 
There  is  the  oratorio  of  the  Creation  led  on  by  Adam,  and  the  oratorio  of  the  Red 
Sea  led  on  by  Moses,  and  the  oratorio  of  the  Messiah  led  on  by  St.  Paul,  while 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFK. 


301 


the   archangel,  with  swinging   baton,  contiols  the  one  hundred   and   forty -four 
thousand  who  make  up  the  orchestra.     Do  you  want  reunion  ?     There  are  your 

dead  children  waiting  to  kiss 
you,  waiting  to  embrace  you, 
waiting  to  twist  garlands  in 
your  hair.  You  have  been 
accustomed  to  open  the  door 
on  this  side  of  the  sepulchre. 
I  open  the  door  on  the  other 
side  of  the  sepulchre.  You 
have  been  accustomed  to  walk 
in  the  wet  grass  on  the  top  of 
the  grave.  I  show  you  the 
under  side  of  the  grave;  the 
bottom  has  fallen  out  and  the 
long  ropes  with  which  the 
pall-bearers  let  down  your 
dead,  let  them  clear  through 
into  heaven. 


THE   ANGEL  OF  THE   SEPULCHRE. 


^  ^i}xijfiiixftiii^ick. 


REACHING  THE  GOLDEN  SHORE  ON   FRAGMENTS  OF  WRECK. 

'ever  off  Goodwin  Sands,  or  the  Skerries,  or  Cape  Hatteras 
was  a  ship  in  worse  predicament  than  in  the  Mediterra- 
nean hurricane  was  the  grain  ship,  on  which  276  passen- 
gers were  driven  on  the  coast  of  Malta,  five  miles  from  the 
metropolis  of  that  island,  called  Civita  Vecchia.  After  a 
two  weeks'  tempest  and  the  ship  was  entirely  disabled,  and 
captain  and  crew  had  become  completely  demoralized,  an 
old  missionary  took  command  of  the  vessel.  He  was 
small,  crooked-back  and  sore-eyed,  according  to  tradition.  It  was  Paul,  the  only 
unscared  man  aboard.  He  was  no  more  afraid  of  a  Euroclydon  tossing  the  Medi- 
terranean Sea,  now  up  to  the  gates  of  heaven  and  now  sinking  it  to  the  gates  of 
hell,  than  he  was  afraid  of  a  kitten  playing  with  a  string.  He  ordered  them  all 
down  to  take  their  rations,  first  asking  for  them  a  blessing.  Then  he  insured  all 
their  lives,  telling  them  they  would  be  rescued,  and,  so  far  from  losing  their  heads, 
they  would  not  lose  so  much  of  their  hair  as  you  could  cut  off  with  one  click  of  the 
scissors;  ay,  not  a  thread  of  it,  whether  it  were  gray  with  age  or  golden  wnth  youth. 
"  There  shall  not  a  hair  fall  from  the  head  of  any  of  you." 


THE  WRECK. 

Knowing  that  they  can  never  get  to  the  desired  port,  they  make  the  sea  on  the 
fourteenth  night  black  with  overthrown  cargo,  so  that  when  the  ship  strikes  it  will 
not  strike  so  heavily.  At  daybreak  they  saw  a  creek,  and  in  their  exigency  resolved 
to  make  for  it.  And  so  they  cut  the  cables,  took  in  the  two  paddles  that  they  had 
on  these  old  boats,  and  hoisted  the  mainsail  so  that  they  mio^ht  come  with  such  force 
as  to  be  driven  high  up  on  the  beach  by  some  fortunate  billow.  There  she  goes — 
tumbling  toward  the  rock,  now  prow  foremost,  now  stern  foremost,  now  rolling 
over  to  the  starboard,  now  a  wave  dashes  clear  over  the  deck,  and  it  seems  as  if 
the  old  craft  has  gone  forever.  But  up  she  comes  again,  Paul's  arm  around  a 
mast,  he  cries:    "  All  is  well.     God  has  given  me  all  those  that  sail  with  me." 

Crash  went  the  prow  with  such  force  that  it  broke  off  the  mast.  Crash  went 
the  timbers  till  the  sea  rushed  through  from  side  to  side  of  the  vessel.     She  parts 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  303 

amidships,  and  into  a  thousand  fragments  the  vessel,  and  into  the  waves  276  mor- 
tals are  precipitated.  Some  of  them  had  been  brought  up  on  the  seashore  and  had 
learned  to  swim,  and  with  their  chins  just  above  the  waves,  and  by  stroke  of  both 
arms  and  propulsion  of  both  feet,  they  put  out  for  the  beach  and  reach  it.  But 
alas  !  for  those  others.  They  have  never  learned  to  swim,  or  they  were  wounded 
by  the  falling  of  the  mast,  or  the  nervous  shock  was  too  great  for  them.  And 
others  had  been  weakened  by  the  long  sea-sickness. 

Oh,  what  will  become  of  them  ?  ' '  Take  that  piece  of  a  rudder, ' '  says  Paul  to 
one.  "Take  that  fragment  of  a  spar,"  says  Paul  to  another.  "  Take  that  table." 
' '  Take  that  image  of  Castor  and  Pollux. "  "  Take  that  plank  from  the  lifeboat. ' ' 
"  Take  anything  and  head  for  the  beach." 

What  a  struggle  for  life  in  the  breakers  !  Oh,  the  merciless  waters,  how  they 
sweep  over  the  heads  of  men,  women  and  children  !  Hold  on  there  !  Almost 
ashore,  keep  up  your  courage  !  Remember  what  Paul  told  you.  There  the  reced- 
ing wave  on  the  beach  leaves  in  the  sand  a  whole  family.  There  crawls  up  out  of 
the  surf  the  centurion.  There  another  plank  comes  in  with  a  life  clinging  fast  to 
it.  There  another  piece  of  the  shattered  vessel  with  its  freightage  of  an  immortal 
soul.  They  must  by  this  time  all  be  saved.  Yes;  there  comes  in  last  of  all,  for 
he  had  been  overseeing  the  rest,  the  old  missionary,  who  wrings  the  water  from 
his  gray  beard  and  cries  out:    "  Thank  God,  all  are  here  !" 

Gather  them  around  the  fire  and  call  the  roll.  Paul  builds  a  fire,  and  when  the 
bundles  of  sticks  begin  to  crackle,  and,  standing  and  sitting  around  the  blaze,  the 
passengers  begin  to  recover  from  their  chill,  and  their  wet  clothes  begin  to  dry,  and 
warmth  begins  to  come  into  all  the  shivering  passengers,  let  the  purser  of  the  vessel 
go  round  and  see  if  any  of  the  poor  creatures  are  missing.  Not  one  of  the  crowd 
that  were  plunged  into  the  sea.  How  it  relieves  our  anxiety  as  we  read:  "  Some 
on  broken  pieces  of  the  ship,  and  so  it  came  to  pass  they  all  escaped  safe  to  land." 

Having  on  previous  occasions  looked  at  the  other  passengers,  I  confine  myself 
here  to  an  examination  of  those  who  came  in  on  broken  pieces  of  the  ship.  There 
is  something  about  them  that  excites  in  me  an  intense  interest.  I  am  not  so  much 
interested  in  those  that  could  swim.  They  got  ashore,  as  I  expected.  A  mile  of 
water  is  not  a  very  great  undertaking  for  a  strong  swimmer,  or  even  two  miles  are 
not.  But  I  cannot  stop  thinking  about  those  on  broken  pieces  of  the  ship.  The 
great  gospel  ship  is  the  finest  vessel  of  the  universe,  and  can  carr^^  more  passengers 
than  any  ship  ever  constructed,  and  you  could  no  more  wreck  it  than  you  could 
wreck  the  throne  of  God  Almighty.  I  wish  all  the  people  would  come  aboard  of 
her.  I  could  not  promise  a  smooth  voyage,  for  ofttimes  it  will  be  tempestuous  or 
a  chopped  sea,  but  I  could  promise  safe  arrival  for  all  who  took  passage  on  that 
Great  Eastern,  so  called  by  me  because  its  commander  came  out  of  the  East,  the 
star  of  the  East  a  badge  of  His  authority. 


304 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


But  a  vast  multitude  do  not  take  regular  passage.  Their  theology  is  broken 
in  pieces,  and  their  lives  are  broken  in  pieces,  and  their  habits  are  broken  in  pieces, 
and  their  worldly  and  spiritual  prospects  are  broken  in  pieces,  and  yet  I  believe 
they  are  going  to  reach  the  shining  shore;  and  I  am  encouraged  by  the  experience 
of  those  people  who  were  saved  with  Paul,  and  the  promise  on  record  that  even 
the  sea  shall  give  up  its  dead,  mother  and  child,  father  and  son,  sailor  and  captain, 
if  they  died  in  Christ,  to  whatever  port  in  life  they  were  bound  they  shall  gain  the 
heavenly  port. 

I  do  not  underrate  the  value  of  a  great  theological  system,  but  where  in  all  the 
Bible  is  there  anything  that  says:  Believe  in  John  Calvin  and  thou  shalt  be  saved, 
or  believe  in  Arminius  and  thou  shalt  be  saved,  or  believe  in  the  Synod  of  Dort 
and  thou  shalt  be  saved,  or  believe  in  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved?     A  man  may  be  orthodox  and  go  to  hell,  or  heterodox  and  go  to  heaven. 

The  man  who,  in  the  deep  affection  of 
his  heart  accepts  Christ  is  saved,  and  the 
man  who  does  not  accept  Him  is  lost. 

I  believe  in  both  the  Heidelberg  and 
Westminster  catechism,  and  I  wish  you 
all  did,  but  you  may  believe  in  nothing 
they  contain  except  the  one  idea  that 
Christ  came  to  save  sinners,  and  that 
you  are  one  of  them,  and  you  are  in- 
stantly rescued.  If  you  can  come  in 
the  grand  old  ship,  I  would  rather  have 
you  get  aboard,  but  if  you  can  find  only 
a  piece  of  wood  as  long  as  the  human 
body,  or  a  piece  as  wide  as  the  out- 
spread human  arms,  and  either  of  them  is  a  piece  of  the  cross,  come  in  on  that 
piece.  Tens  of  thousands  of  people  are  to-day  kept  out  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
because  they  cannot  believe  ever5'thing. 

I  am  talking  with  a  man  thoughtful  about  his  soul  who  has  lately  traveled 
through  New  England  and  passed  the  night  at  Andover.  He  saj's  to  me:  "I 
cannot  believe  that  in  this  life  the  destiny  is  irrevocably  fixed;  I  think  there  will  be 
another  opportunity  of  repentance  after  death. ' ' 

I  say  to  him:  ' '  My  brother,  what  has  that  to  do  with  you  ?  Don't  you  realize 
that  a  man  who  waits  for  another  chance  after  death  when  he  has  a  good  chance 
before  death  is  a  stark  fool  ?  Had  not  you  better  take  the  plank  that  is  thrown  to 
you  now  and  head  for  shore,  rather  than  wait  for  a  plank  that  may  by  invisible 
hands  be  thrown  to  you  after  you  are  dead  ?  Do  as  you  please,  but  as  for  myself, 
with  pardon  for  all  my  sins  offered  me  now,  and  all  the  joys  of  time  and  eternity 


SAVED  ON  BROKEN  PIECES  OE  THE  SHIP. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  305 

offered  me  now,  I  instantly  take  them  rather  than  run  the  risk  of  such  another 
chance  as  wise  men  think  they  can  peel  off  or  twist  out  of  a  Scripture  passage  that 
has  for  all  the  Christian  centuries  been  interpreted  another  way." 


THE  SEA  SHAi<L  GIVE  UP  THE  DTS.A.T).  —  Froin  a  Bas-relief  by  Flaxman. 
TAKE  TO  THE   PLANK. 
You  say:   "  I  do  not  like  Princeton  theology,  or  New  Haven  theology,  or 
Andover  theology. ' ' 


3o6 


THK  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


I  do  not  ask  you  on  board  any  of  these  great  men-of-war,  their  port-holes  filled 
with  the  great  siege-guns  of  ecclesiastical  battle.     But  I  do  ask  you  to  take  the 


A    YOUNG   HERO. 


one  plank  of  the  gospel  that  you  do  believe  iu  and  strike  out  for  the  pearl-strung 
beach  of  heaven. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


307 


Says  some  other  man:  "  I  would  attend  to  religion  if  I  was  quite  sure  about 
the  doctrine  of  election  and  free  agency,  but  that  mixes  me  all  up."  Those  things 
used  to  bother  me,  but  I  have  no  more  perplexity  about  them,  for  I  say  to  myself: 
"  If  I  love  Christ  and  live  a  good,  honest,  useful  life,  I  am  elected  to  be  saved; 
and  if  I  do  not  love  Christ  and  live  a  bad  life,  I  will  be  damned,  and  all  the  theo- 
logical seminaries  of  the  uni- 
verse cannot  make  it  any  dif- 
erent. ' ' 

I  floundered  a  long  while 
in  the  sea  of  sin  and  doubt, 
and  it  was  as  rough  as  the 
Mediterranean  on  the  four- 
teenth night,  when  they  threw 
the  grain  overboard,  but  I  saw 
there  was  mercy  for  a  sinner, 
and  that  plank  I  took,  and  I 
have  been  warming  myself  by 
the  bright  fire  on  the  shore 
for  three  decades. 


DOESN'T  BELIEVE  IN  A  HELL. 

While  I  am  talking  to 
another  man  about  his  soul 
he  tells  me:  "  I  do  not  become 
a  Christian  because  I  do  not 
believe  there  is  any  hell  at  all. " 

Ah  !  don't  you?  Do  all 
the  people,  of  all  beliefs  and 
no  beliefs  at  all,  of  good  morals 
and  bad  morals,  go  straight  to 
a  happy  heaven?  Do  the 
holy  and  the  debauched  have 
the  same  destination  ?  At 
midnight  in  a  hallway  the 
owner  of  a  house  and  a  burg- 
lar meet  each  other,  and  they  both  fire,  and  both  are  wounded,  but  the  burglar 
died  in  five  minutes  and  the  owner  of  the  house  lives  a  week  after;  will  the 
burglar  be  at  the  gate  of  heaven  waiting  when  the  house-owner  comes  in  ?  Will 
the  debauchee  and  the  libertine  go  right  in  among  the  families  of  heaven  ?  I 
wonder  if  Herod  is  playing  on  the  banks  of  the  river  of  life  with  the  children  he 


3o8  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

massacred.  I  wonder  if  Charles  Guiteau  or  John  Wilkes  Booth  are  up  there 
shooting  at  a  mark.  I  do  not  now  controvert  it,  although  I  must  say  that  for  such 
a  miserable  heaven  I  have  no  admiration.  But  the  Bible  does  not  say,  "  Believe 
in  perdition  and  be  saved."  Because  all  are  saved,  according  to  your  theory,  that 
ought  not  to  keep  you  from  loving  and  seriang  Christ.  Do  not  refuse  to  come 
ashore  because  all  the  others,  according  to  your  theory,  are  going  to  get  ashore. 
You  may  have  a  different  theory  about  chemistr}^  about  astronomy,  about  the 
atmosphere,  from  that  which  others  adopt,  but  you  are  not  therefore  hindered  from 
action.  Because  your  theory  of  light  is  different  from  others,  do  not  refuse  to 
open  your  eyes.  Because  your  theory  of  air  is  different,  you  do  not  refuse  to 
breathe.  Because  your  theory  about  the  stellar  system  is  different,  j^ou  do  not 
refuse  to  acknowledge  the  North  Star.  Why  should  the  fact  that  3'our  theological 
theories  are  different  hinder  you  from  acting  upon  what  j^ou  know  ?  If  5-ou  have 
not  a  whole  ship  fashioned  in  the  theological  dry  docks  to  bring  you  to  wharfage, 
you  have  at  least  a  plank. 

DON'T  BELIEVE  IN   REVIVALS. 

"  But  I  don't  believe  in  revivals  !" 

Then  go  to  your  room,  and  all  alone  with  your  door  locked,  give  your  heart 
to  God,  and  join  some  church  where  the  thermometer  never  gets  higher  than  fifty 
in  the  shade. 

"  But  I  do  not  believe  in  baptism  !" 

Come  in  without  it,  and  settle  that  matter  afterward. 

"  But  there  are  so  many  inconsistent  Christians  !' ' 

Then  come  in  and  show  them  by  a  good  example  how  professors  ought  to 
act. 

"  But  I  don't  believe  in  the  Old  Testament  !" 

Then  come  in  on  the  New. 

"  But  I  don't  like  the  Book  of  Romans  !" 

Then  come  in  on  Matthew  or  lyuke.  Refusing  to  come  to  Christ,  whom  you 
admit  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  lost,  because  you  caimot  admit  other  things  you  are 
like  a  man  out  there  in  that  Mediterranean  tempest,  and  tossed  in  the  Melita 
breakers,  refusing  to  come  ashore  until  he  can  mend  the  pieces  of  the  broken  ship. 
I  hear  him  say: 

"  I  won't  go  in  on  any  of  these  planks  until  I  know  in  what  part  of  the  ship 
they  belong.  When  I  can  get  the  windlass  in  the  right  place,  and  the  sails  set, 
and  that  keel-piece  where  it  belongs,  and  that  floor  timber  right,  and  these  ropes 
untangled,  I  will  go  ashore.  I  am  an  old  sailor  and  know  all  about  ships  for  forty 
years,  and  as  soon  as  I  can  get  the  vessel  afloat  in  good  shape  I  will  come  in." 

A  man  drifting  by  on  a  piece  of  wood  overhears  him  and  says: 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  309 

' '  You  will  drown  before  you  get  that  ship  reconstructed.  Better  do  as  I  am 
doing.  I  know  nothing  about  ships,  and  never  saw  one  before  I  came  on  board 
this,  and  I  cannot  swim  a  stroke,  but  I  am  going  ashore  on  this  shivered  timber." 

SETTLING    DIFFICULTIES. 

You  may  get  all  your  difiiculties  settled,  as  Garibaldi,  the  magnetic  Italian, 
got  his  gardens  made.  When  the  war  between  Austria  and  Sardinia  broke  out  he 
was  living  at  Caprera,  a  very  rough  and  uncultured  island  home.  But  he  went 
forth  with  his  sword  to  achieve  the  liberation  of  Naples  and  Sicily,  and  gave 
9,000,000  people  free  government  under  Victor  Emanuel.  Garibaldi,  after  being 
absent  two  years  from  Caprera,  returned,  and,  when  he  approached  it,  he  found 
that  his  home  had,  by  Victor  Emanuel,  as  a  surprise,  been  Edenized.  Trimmed 
shrubbery  had  taken  the  place  of  thorny  thickets,  gardens  the  place  of  barrenness, 
and  the  old  rookery  in  which  he  once  lived  had  given  way  to  a  picturesque  man- 
sion, where  he  lived  in  comfort  the  rest  of  his  days.  And  I  tell  you  if  you  will 
come  and  enlist  under  the  banner  of  our  Victor  Emanuel  and  follow  Him  through 
thick  and  thin,  and  fight  His  battles,  and  endure  His  sacrifices,  you  will  find  after 
a  while  that  He  has  changed  your  heart  from  a  jungle  of  thorny  skepticisms  into 
a  garden  all  abloom  with  luxuriant  joy  that  you  have  never  dreamt  of;  from  a 
tangled  Caprera  of  sadness  into  a  paradise  of  God  ! 

BELIEVE    IN   SOMETHING. 

I  do  not  know  how  your  theological  system  went  to  pieces.  It  may  be  that 
your  parents  started  you  with  only  one  plank,  and  you  believed  little  or  nothing. 
Or  they  may  have  been  too  rigid  and  severe  in  religious  discipline  and  cracked 
you  over  the  head  with  a  psalm-book.  It  may  be  that  some  partner  in  business, 
who  was  a  member  of  an  evangelical  church,  played  on  you  a  trick  that  disgusted 
you  with  religion.  It  may  be  that  you  have  associates  who  have  talked  against 
Christianity  in  your  presence  until  you  are  "  all  at  sea,"  and  you  dwell  more  on 
things  that  you  do  not  believe  than  on  things  you  do  believe.  You  are  in  one 
respect  like  Lord  Nelson,  when  a  signal  was  lifted  that  he  wished  to  disregard  and 
he  put  his  sea-glass  to  his  blind  eye  and  said:   "  I  really  do  not  see  the  signal." 

If  you  can  believe  nothing  else,  you  certainly  believe  in  vicarious  suffering, 
for  you  see  it  almost  every  day  in  some  shape.  Some  time  ago  the  steamship 
"  Knickerbocker,"  of  the  Cromwell  Line,  running  between  New  Orleans  and  New 
York,  was  in  great  storms,  and  the  captain  and  crew  saw  the  schooner  "Mar}^  D. 
Cranmer,"  of  Philadelphia,  in  distress.  The  weather  cold,  the  waves  mountain 
high,  the  first  officer  of  the  steamship  and  four  men  put  out  in  a  life-boat  to  save 
the  crew  of  the  schooner,  and  reached  the  vessel  and  towed  it  out  of  danger,  the 
wind  shifting  so  that  the  schooner  was  saved.     But  the  five  men  of  the  steamship 


3IO 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


coming  back,  their  boat  capsized,  yet  righted  again  and  came  on,  the  sailors 
coated  with  ice.  The  boat  capsized  again,  and  three  times  upset  and  was  righted, 
and  a  line  was  thrown  the  poor  fellows,  but  their  hands  and  arms  were  frozen  so 
they  could  not  grasp  it,  and  a  great  wave  rolled  over  them,  and  they  went  down, 
never  to  rise  till  the  sea  gives  up  its  dead.  Appreciate  that  heroism  and  self- 
sacrifice  of  the  brave  fellows  we  all  can,  and  can  we  not  appreciate  the  Christ  who 
put  out  in  a  more  biting  cold  and  into  a  more  overwhelming  surge  to  bring  us  out 
of  infinite  peril  into  everlasting  safety  ?  The  wave  of  human  hate  rolled  over 
Him  from  one  side,  and  the  wave  of  hellish  fury  rolled  over  Him  on  the  other 
side.  Oh,  the  thickness  of  the  night  and  the  thunder  of  the  tempest  into  which 
Christ  plunged  for  our  rescue 


RAMSGATE   PIER  HEAD. 

COME  IN  ON  THE  CROSS. 

Come  in  on  that  one  narrow  beam,  the  beam  of  the  cross.  Let  all  else  go, 
and  cling  to  that.  Put  that  under  you,  and  with  the  earnestness  of  a  swimmer 
struggling  for  his  life,  put  out  for  shore.  There  is  a  great  warm  fire  of  welcome 
already  built,  and  already  many  who  were  as  far  out  as  you  are,  are  standing  in 
its  genial  and  heavenly  glow.  The  angels  of  God's  rescue  are  wading  out  into 
the  surf  to  clutch  your  hand,  and  they  know  how  exhausted  you  are,  and  all  the 
redeemed  prodigals  of  heaven  are  on  the  beach  with  new  white  robes  to  clothe  ali 
those  who  come  in  on  broken  pieces  of  the  ship. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  311 

My  sympathies  are  for  such  all  the  more  because  I  was  naturally  skeptical, 
disposed  to  question  everything  about  this  life  and  the  next,  and  was  in  danger  of 
being  further  out  at  sea  than  any  of  the  276  in  the  Mediterranean  breakers,  and  I 
was  sometimes  the  annoj-ance  of  my  theological  professor  because  I  asked  so  many 
questions.  But  I  came  in  on  a  plank.  I  knew  Christ  was  the  Saviour  of  sinners, 
and  that  I  was  a  sinner,  and  I  got  ashore,  and  I  do  not  propose  to  go  out  on  that 
sea  again.  I  have  not  for  thirty  minutes  discussed  the  controverted  points  of 
theology  in  thirty  years.  And  during  the  rest  of  mj'  life  I  do  not  propose  to  dis- 
cuss them  for  thirty  seconds. 

I  would  rather,  in  a  mud-scow,  try  to  weather  the  worst  cyclone  that  ever 
swept  up  from  the  Caribbean  than  risk  my  immortal  soul  in  useless  and  perilous 
discussion,*  in  which  some  of  my  brethren  in  the  ministry  are  indulging.  They 
remind  me  of  a  company  of  sailors  standing  on  Ramsgate  pier-head,  from  which 
the  life-boats  are  usually  launched,  and  coolly  discussing  the  different  styles  of 
oar-locks  and  how  deep  a  boat  ought  to  set  in  the  water,  while  a  hurricane  is  in 
full  blast,  and  there  are  three  steamers,  crowded  with  passengers,  going  to  pieces 
in  the  offing.  An  old  tar,  the  muscles  of  his  face  working  with  nervous  excite- 
ment, cries  out: 

"  This  is  no  time  to  discuss  such  things.  Man  the  life-boat !  Who  will 
volunteer?  Out  with  her  into  the  surf!  Pull,  my  lads,  pull  for  the  wreck! 
Ha  !  ha  !  Now  we  have  them  !  L,ift  them  in  and  lay  them  down  on  the  bottom 
of  the  boat.  Jack,  you  tr}^  to  bring  them  to.  Put  these  flannels  around  their 
hands  and  feet,  and  I  will  pull  for  the  shore.  God  help  me  !  There  !  Landed  ! 
Huzza  !" 

From  many  a  death-bed  I  have  seen  the  hands  thrown  up  in  deploration 
something  like  this:  "  My  life  has  been  wasted.  I  had  good  mental  faculties, 
and  fine  social  position,  and  great  opportunity,  but  through  worldliness  and 
neglect  all  has  gone  to  waste  save  these  few  remaining  hours,  I  now  accept  of 
Christ,  and  shall  enter  heaven  through  His  mercy;  but  alas  !  alas  !  that  when  I 
might  have  entered  the  heaven  of  eternal  rest  with  a  full  cargo,  and  been  greeted 
by  the  waving  hands  of  a  multitude  in  whose  salvation  I  had  borne  a  blessed  part» 
I  must  confess  I  now  enter  the  harbor  of  heaven  on  broken  pieces  of  the  ship  !' ' 


^lyti^imn^. 


MOTHERHOOD,    BABYHOOD,   SCIENCE  AND  THE  FIELDS  OF  GOD. 

0\V  painfully  and  wearily  one  thousand  years  of  the  world's  exist- 
ence rolled  along,  and  no  Christ.  Two  thousand  years,  and  no 
Christ.  Three  thousand  years,  and  no  Christ.  Four  thousand 
years,  and  no  Christ.  "Give  us  a  Christ,"  had  cried  Assyrian 
and  Persian  and  Chaldean  and  Egyptian  civilizations,  but  the  lips 
of  the  earth  and  the  lips  of  the  sky  made  no  answer.  The  world 
ha  J  already  been  affluent  of  genius.  Among  poets  had  appeared 
Homer  and  Thespis  and  Aristophanes  and  Sophocles  and  Euri- 
pides and  Alexis  ^schylus,  yet  no  Christ  to  be  the  most  poetic 
figure  of  the  centuries.  Among  historians  had  appeared  Herod- 
otus and  Xenophon  and  Thucydides,  but  no  Christ  from  whom 
all  history  was  to  date  backward  and  forward — B.  C.  and  A.  D. 
Among  conquerors  Camilhis  and  Manlius,  and  Regulus,  and  Han- 
nibal, and  Scipio,  and  Pompey,  and  Caesar,  yet  no  Christ,  who 
was  to  be  conqueror  of  earth  and  heaven. 

But  the  slow  century,  and  the  slow  year,  and  the  slow  month, 
and  the  slow  hour  at  last  arrived.  The  world  had  had  matins  or  concerts  in  the 
morning  and  vespers  or  concerts  in  the  evening,  but  now  it  is  to  have  a  concert  at 
midnight.  The  black  window-shutters  of  a  December  night  were  thrown  open, 
and  some  of  the  best  singers  of  the  world  stood  there,  and,  putting  back  the 
drapery  of  cloud,  chanted  a  peace  anthem,  until  all  the  echoes  of  hill  and  valley 
applauded  and  encored  the  hallelujah  chorus. 

At  last  the  world  has  a  Christ,  and  just  the  Christ  it  needs.  Come,  let  us 
go  into  that  Christmas  scene  as  though  we  had  never  before  worshiped  at  the 
manger.  Here  is  a  Madonna  worth  looking  at.  I  wonder  not  that  the  most 
frequent  name  in  all  lands  and  in  all  Christian  centuries  is  Mary.  And  there  are 
Marys  in  palaces  and  Marys  in  cabins,  and  though  German  and  French  and  Italian 
and  Spanish  and  English  pronounce  it  differently  they  are  all  namesakes  of  the 
one  whom  we  find  on  a  bed  of  straw  with  her  pale  face  against  the  soft  cheek  of 
Christ  in  the  night  of  the  nativity.  All  the  great  painters  have  tried  on  canvas 
to  present  Mary  and  her  Child,  and  the  incidents  of  that  most  famous  night  of  the 

(312) 


(313) 


314 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I^IFE. 


world's  history.  Raphael  in  three  different  masterpieces  celebrated  them.  Tin- 
toretto and  Ghirlandajo  .surpassed  themselves  in  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi.  Cor- 
reggio  needed  to  do  nothing  more  than  his  Madonna  to  become  immortal.  The 
Madonna  of  the  lyily,  by  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  will  kindle  the  admiration  of  all  ages. 
Murillo  never  won  greater  triumph  by  his  pencil  than  in  his  presentation  of  the 
Holy  Family.  But  all  the  galleries  of  Dresden  are  forgotten  when  I  think  of  the 
small  room  of  that  gallery  containing  the  Sistine  Madonna.  Yet  all  of  them  were 
copies  of  St.  Matthew's  Madonna,  and  Luke's  Madonna,  the  inspired  Madonna  of 
the  Old  Book,  which  He  had  put  into  our  hands  when  we  were  infants,  and  that 
we  hope  to  have  under  our  heads  when  we  die. 

MAN'S  CRUELTY  TO  ANIMALS. 


Behold,  in  the  first  place,  that  on 
the  first  night  of  Christ's  life  God 
honored  the  brute  creation.  You  cannot 
get  into  that  Bethlehem  barn  without 
going  past  the  camels,  the  mules,  the 
dogs,  the  oxen.  The  brutes  of  that 
stable  heard  the  first  cry  of  the  infant 
Lord.  Some  of  the  old  painters  repre- 
sent the  oxen  and  camels  kneeling  that 
night  before  the  new-born  Babe.  And 
well  might  they  kneel.  Have  you  ever 
thought  that  Christ  came  among  other 
things  to  alleviate  the  sufferings  of  the 
brute  creation  ?  Was  it  not  appropriate 
that  He  should  during  the  first  few  days 
and  nights  of  His  life  on  earth  be  sur- 
rounded by  the  dumb  beasts  whose 
moan  and  plaint  and  bellowing  have  for  ages  been  a  prayer  to  God  for  the  arrest- 
ing of  their  tortures  and  the  righting  of  their  wrongs  ?  It  did  not  merely  "  happen 
so  "  that  the  unintelligent  creatures  of  God  should  have  been  that  night  in  close 
neighborhood.  Not  a  kennel  in  all  the  centuries,  not  a  bird's  nest,  not  a  worn-out 
horse  on  tow-path,  not  a  herd  freezing  in  the  poorly-built  cow-pen,  not  a  freight 
car  in  summer  time  bringing  the  beeves  to  market  without  water  through  a  thousand 
miles  of  agony,  not  a  surgeon's  room  witnessing  the  .struggles  of  fox,  or  rabbit,  or 
pigeon,  or  dog  in  the  horrors  of  vivisection  but  has  an  interest  in  the  fact  that  Christ 
was  born  in  a  stable  surrounded  by  brutes.  He  remembers  that  night,  and  the 
prayer  He  heard  in  their  pitiful  moan  He  will  answer  in  the  punishment  of  those  who 
maltreat  the  dumb  brutes.    They  surely  hav^e  as  much  right  in  this  world  as  we  have. 


THE   SISTINE    MADONNA. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  3'S 

In  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  you  may  see  that  they  were  placed  on  the 
earth  before  man  was — the  fish  and  fowl  the  fifth  day,  and  the  quadruped  the 
morning  of  the  sixth  day,  and  man  not  until  the  afternoon  of  that  day.  The 
whale,  the  eagle,  the  lion,  and  all  the  lesser  creatures  of  their  kind  were  prede- 
cessors of  the  human  family.  They  have  the  world  by  right  of  possession.  They 
have  also  paid  rent  for  the  places  they  occupied.  What  an  army  of  defence  all 
over  the  land  are  the  faithful  watchdogs.  And  who  can  tell  what  the  world  owes 
to  horse,  and  camel,  and  ox  for  transportation  ?  And  robin  and  lark  have,  by  the 
cantatas  with  which  they  have  filled  orchard  and  forest,  more  than  paid  for  the 
few  grains  they  have  picked  up  for  their  sustenance.  When  you  abuse  any 
creature  of  God  you  strike  its  creator,  and  you  insult  the  Christ  who,  though  He 
might  have  been  welcomed  into  life  by  princes,  and  taken  His  first  infantile 
slumber  amid  Tyrian  plush,  and  canopied  couches,  and  rippling  waters  from  royal 
aqueducts  dripping  into  basins  of  ivory  and  pearl,  chose  to  be  born  on  a  level  with 
a  cow's  horn,  or  a  camel's  hoof,  or  a  dog's  nostril,  that  He  might  be  the  allevia- 
tion of  brutal  suffering  as  well  as  the  redeemer  of  man. 

Standing  then,  as  I  imagine  now  I  do,  in  that  Bethlehem  night,  with  an 
infant  Christ  on  the  one  side  and  the  speechless  creatures  of  God  on  the  other,  I 
cry,  Look  out  how  you  strike  the  rowel  into  that  horse's  side.  Take  off  that 
curbed  bit  from  that  bleeding  mouth.  Remove  that  saddle  from  that  raw  back. 
Shoot  not  for  fun  that  bird  that  is  too  small  for  food.  Forget  not  to  put  water 
into  the  cage  of  that  canary.  Throw  out  some  crumbs  to  those  birds  caught  too 
far  north  in  the  winter's  inclemency.  Arrest  that  man  who  is  making  one  horse 
draw  a  load  heavy  enough  for  three.  Rush  in  upon  that  scene  where  boys  are 
torturing  a  cat  or  transfixing  a  butterfly  or  grasshopper.  Drive  not  off  that  old 
robin,  for  her  nest  is  a  mother's  cradle,  and  under  her  wing  there  may  be  three  or 
four  prima  donnas  of  the  sky  in  training.  And  in  your  families  and  in  5^our 
schools  teach  the  coming  generation  more  mercy  than  the  present  generation  has 
ever  shown,  and  in  this  marvelous  Bible  picture  of  the  nativity,  while  you  point 
out  to  them  the  angel,  show  them  also  the  camel,  and  while  they  hear  the  celestial 
chant  let  them  also  hear  the  cow's  moan.  No  more  did  Christ  show  interest  in 
the  botanical  world  than  when  He  said,  "  Consider  the  lilies,"  than  He  showed 
sympathy  for  the  ornithological  when  He  said,  "  Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air,"  and 
the  quadrupedal  world  when  He  allowed  Himself  to  be  called  in  one  place  a  lion 
and  in  another  place  a  lamb.  Meanwhile,  may  the  Christ  of  the  Bethlehem  cattle- 
pen  have  mercy  on  the  suffering  stock-yards  that  are  preparing  diseased  and 
fevered  meat  for  our  American  households. 

THE  BIRTH   OF  CHRIST. 

Behold  also  in  this  Bible  scene  how  on  that  Christmas  night  God  honored 
childhood.     Christ  might  have  made  His  first  visit  to  our  world  in  a  cloud,  as  He 


3i6  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

will  descend  on  His  next  visit  in  a  cloud.  In  what  a  chariot  of  illumined  vapor 
He  might  have  rolled  down  the  sky,  escorted  by  mounted  cavalry,  with  lightning 
of  drawn  sword.  Elijah  had  a  carriage  of  fire  to  take  him  up,  why  not  Jesus  a 
carriage  of  fire  to  bring  Him  down  ?  Or  over  the  arched  bridge  of  a  rainbow  the 
lyord  might  have  descended.  Or  Christ  might  have  had  His  mortality  built  up 
on  earth  out  of  the  dust  of  a  garden,  as  was  Adam,  in  full  manhood  at  the  start, 
without  the  introductory  feebleness  of  infancy.  No,  no  !  Childhood  was  to  be 
honored  by  that  advent.  He  must  have  a  child's  light  limbs,  and  a  child's 
dimpled  hand,  and  a  child's  beaming  eye,  and  a  child's  flaxen  hair,  and  babyhood 
was  to  be  honored  for  all  time  to  come,  and  a  cradle  was  to  mean  more  than  a 
grave.  Mighty  God  !  May  the  reflection  of  that  one  Child's  face  be  seen  in  all 
infantile  faces.  Enough  have  those  fathers  and  mothers  on  hand  if  they  have  a 
child  in  the  house.  A  throne,  a  crown,  a  sceptre,  a  kingdom  under  charge.  Be 
careful  how  you  strike  him  across  the  head,  jarring  the  brain.  What  you  say  to 
him  will  be  centennial  and  millenial,  and  one  hundred  years  and  one  thousand 
5'ears  will  not  stop  the  echo  and  re-echo.  Do  not  say,  "It  is  only  a  child." 
Rather  say,  "  It  is  only  an  immortal."  It  is  only  a  masterpiece  of  Jehovah.  It 
is  only  a  being  that  shall  outlive  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars  and  ages  quadrien- 
nial.  God  has  infinite  resources  and  He  can  give  presents  of  great  value,  but 
when  He  wants  to  give  the  richest  possible  gift  to  a  household  He  looks  around  all 
the  worlds  and  all  the  universe,  and  then  gives  a  child.  The  greatest  present  that 
God  ever  gave  our  world  He  gave  nearly  2000  years  ago,  and  He  gave  it  on  a 
Christmas  night,  and  it  was  of  such  value  that  Heaven  adjourned  for  a  recess  and 
came  down  and  broke  through  the  clouds  to  look  at  it.  Yea,  in  all  ages  God  has 
honored  childhood.  He  makes  almost  every  picture  a  failure,  unless  there  be  a 
child  either  playing  on  the  floor,  or  looking  through  the  window,  or  seated  on  the 
lap  gazing  into  the  face  of  its  mother.  It  was  a  child  in  Naaman's  kitchen  that 
told  the  great  Syrian  warrior  where  he  might  go  and  get  cured  of  the  leprosy, 
which  at  his  seventh  plunge  in  the  Jordan,  was  left  at  the  bottom  of  the  river.  It 
was  to  the  cradle  of  leaves  in  which  a  child  was  laid  rocked  by  the  Nile  that  God 
called  the  attention  of  history.  It  was  a  sick  child  that  evoked  Christ's  curative 
sympathies.  It  was  a  child  that  Christ  set  in  the  midst  of  the  squabbling  disciples 
to  teach  the  lesson  of  humility.  We  are  informed  that  wolf,  and  leopard,  and 
lion  shall  be  yet  so  domesticated  that  a  little  child  shall  lead  them.  A  child 
decided  Waterloo,  showing  the  army  of  Blucher  how  they  could  take  a  short  cut 
through  the  fields  when,  if  the  old  road  had  been  followed,  the  Prussian  General 
would  have  come  up  too  late  to  save  the  destinies  of  Europe.  It  was  a  child  that 
decided  Gettysburg,  he  having  overheard  two  Confederate  Generals  in  a  conver- 
sation in  which  they  decided  to  march  for  Gettysburg  instead  of  Harrisburg,  and 
this,  reported  to   Governor   Curtin,   the   Federal    forces    started  to   meet  their 


JESUS,  THE  CARPENTER'S  SON. -From  the  Pai7iti7ig  by  J.  E.  Millais. 


(317) 


3i8  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

opponents  at  Gettysburg.  And  the  child  of  to-day  is  to  decide  all  the  great 
battles,  make  all  the  laws,  settle  all  the  destinies  and  usher  in  the  world's  salvation 
or  destruction.  Men,  women,  nations,  all  earth  and  all  heaven,  behold  the  child  ! 
Is  there  any  velvet  so  soft  as  a  child's  cheek?  Is  there  any  sky  so  blue  as  a 
child's  eye?  Is  there  any  music  so  sweet  as  the  child's  voice?  Is  there  any 
plume  so  wavy  as  a  child's  hair  ? 

SCIENCE  HONORED. 

Notice  also  that  in  this  Bible  night-scene  God  honored  science.  Who  are  the 
three  wise  men  kneeling  before  the  divine  Infant  ?  Not  boors,  not  ignoramuses,  but 
Caspar,  Belthasar  and  Melchior,  men  who  knew  all  that  was  to  be  known.  They 
were  the  Isaac  Newtons  and  Herschels  and  Faradays  of  their  time.  Their 
alchemj'  was  the  forerunner  of  our  sublime  chemistry,  their  astrology  the  mother 
of  our  magnificent  astronomy.  They  had  studied  stars,  studied  metals,  studied 
physiology,  studied  everything.  And  when  I  see  these  scientists  bowing  before 
the  beautiful  Babe  I  see  the  prophecy  of  the  time  when  all  the  telescopes  and 
microscopes,  and  all  the  Ley  den  jars,-  and  all  the  electric  batteries,  and  all  the 
observatories,  and  all  the  universities  shall  bow  to  Jesus.  It  is  much  that  way 
already.  Where  is  the  college  that  does  not  have  morning  prayers,  thus  bowing 
at  the  manger  ?  Who  have  been  the  greatest  physicians  ?  Omitting  the  names 
of  the  living,  lest  w^e  should  be  invidious,  have  we  not  had  among  them  Christian 
men  like  our  own  Joseph  C.  Hutchinson,  and  Rush,  and  Valentine  Mott,  and 
Abercrombie,  and  Abernethy?  Who  have  been  our  greatest  scientists?  Joseph 
Henry,  who  lived  and  died  in  the  faith  of  the  gospel,  and  Agassiz,  who,  standing 
with  his  students  among  the  hills,  took  off  his  hat  and  said:  "Young  gentlemen, 
before  we  study  these  rocks,  let  us  pray  for  wisdom  to  the  God  who  made  the 
rocks."  To-day  the  greatest  doctors  and  lawyers  of  Brooklyn  and  New  York, 
and  of  all  this  land,  and  of  all  lands,  revere  the  Christian  religion,  and  are  not 
ashamed  to  say  so  before  juries  and  legislatures  and  senates.  All  geology  will  yet 
bow  before  the  Rock  of  Ages.  All  botany  will  yet  worship  the  Rose  of  Sharon. 
All  astronomy  will  yet  recognize  the  Star  of  Bethlehem.  And  physiology  and 
anatomy  will  join  hands  and  say:  "  We  must,  by  the  help  of  God,  get  the  human 
race  up  to  the  perfect  nerve,  and  perfect  muscle,  and  perfect  brain,  and  perfect 
form  of  that  perfect  Child  before  whom  nigh  2000  years  ago  Caspar,  and  Belthasar, 
and  Melchior  bent  their  tired  knees  in  worship. 

Behold  also  in  that  first  Christmas  night  that  God  honored  the  fields.  Come 
in,  shepherd  boys,  to  Bethlehem  and  see  the  Child.  "No,"  they  say;  "  we  are 
not  dressed  good  enough  to  come  in."  "  Yes,  you  are;  come  in."  Sure  enough, 
the  storms,  and  the  night  dew,  and  the  brambles  have  made  rough  work  with  their 
apparel,  but  none  have  a  better  right  to  come  in.     They  were  the  first  to  hear  the 


A  STREET  SCENE  IN  POMPEII.-  Front  a  Pahiling  by  R.  Bompiani.  (319^ 


320  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

music  of  that  Christmas  night.  The  first  announcement  of  a  Saviour's  birth  was 
made  to  those  men  in  the  fields.  There  were  wiseacres  that  night  in  Bethlehem 
and  Jerusalem  snoring  in  deep  sleep,  and  there  were  salaried  officers  of  govern- 
ment, who,  hearing  of  it  afterward,  may  have  thought  that  they  ought  to  have 
had  the  first  news  of  such  a  great  event.  Some  one  dismounting  from  a  swift 
camel  at  their  door  and  knocking  until  at  some  sentinel's  question,  "Who  comes 
there  ?  ' '  the  great  ones  of  the  palace  might  have  been  told  of  the  celestial  arrival. 
No;  the  shepherds  heard  the  first  two  bars  of  the  music,  the  first  in  the  major  key 
and  the  last  in  the  subdued  minor:  "  Glory  be  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth 
peace,  good  will  to  men." 

THE  FIELDS  HONORED. 

Ah,  3'es;  the  fields  were  honored.  The  old  shepherds  with  plaid  and  crook 
have  for  the  most  part  vanished,  but  we  have  grazing — our  United  States  pasture 
fields  and  prairies  contain  about  45,000,000  sheep — and  all  their  keepers  ought  to 
follow  the  shepherds  who  were  first  told  of  the  holy  birth,  and  all  those  who  toil 
in  fields,  all  vine-dressers,  all  orchardists,  all  husbandmen.  Not  only  that  Christ- 
mas night,  but  all  up  and  down  the  world's  history  God  has  been  honoring  the 
fields.  Nearly  all  the  messias  of  reform,  and  literature,  and  eloquence,  and  law, 
and  benevolence,  have  come  from  the  fields.  Washington  from  the  fields.  Jeffer- 
son from  the  fields.  The  Presidential  martyrs,  Garfield  and  I^incoln,  from  the 
fields.  Henry  Clay  from  the  fields.  Daniel  Webster  from  the  fields.  Martin 
Luther  from  the  fields.  And  before  this  world  is  right  the  overflowing  populations 
of  our  crowded  cities  will  have  to  take  to  the  fields.  Instead  of  ten  merchants  in 
rivalry  as  to  who  shall  sell  that  one  apple,  we  want  at  least  eight  of  them  to  go 
out  and  raise  apples.  Instead  of  ten  merchants  desiring  to  sell  that  one  bushel  of 
wheat,  we  want  at  least  eight  of  them  to  go  out  and  raise  wheat.  The  world  wants 
now  more  hard  hands,  more  bronzed  cheeks,  more  muscular  arms.  To  the  fields  ! 
God  honored  them  when  He  w^oke  up  the  shepherds  by  the  midnight  anthem,  and 
He  will,  while  the  world  lasts,  continue  to  honor  the  fields.  When  the  shepherd's 
crook  was  that  famous  night  stood  against  the  w^all  of  the  Bethlehem  khan,  it  was 
a  prophecy  of  the  time  when  thresher's  flail,  and  farmer's  plow,  and  woodman's 
axe,  and  ox's  yoke,  and  sheaf-binder's  rake  shall  surrender  to  the  God  who  made 
the  country  as  man  made  the  town. 

THE  MOTHER. 

Behold  also  that  on  that  Christmas  night  God  honored  motherhood.  Two 
angels  on  their  wings  might  have  brought  an  infant  Saviour  to  Bethlehem  without 
Mary's  being  there  at  all.  When  the  villagers,  on  the  morning  of  December  25, 
awoke,  by   divine  arrangement  and  in  some  unexplained  way,   the  child  Jesus 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


321 


might  have  been  found  in  some  comfortable  cradle  of  the  village.  But  no,  no  ! 
Motherhood  for  all  time  was  to  be  consecrated,  and  one  of  the  tenderest  relations 
was  to  be  the  maternal  relation,  and  one  of  the  sweetest  words  "  Mother."  In  all 
ages  God  has  honored  good  motherhood.  John  Wesley  had  a  good  mother;  St. 
Bernard  had  a  good  mother;  Samuel  Budgett  a  good  mother;  Doddridge  a  good 


THE  YOUNG  FARMER. — Frovi  thc  Painting  by  J.  C.  Ihhetson. 

mother;  Walter  Scott  a  good  mother;  Benjamin  West  a  good  mother.     In  a  great 

audience,  most  of  whom  were  Christians,  I   asked  that  all  those  who  had  been 

blessed  of  Christian  mothers  arise,  and  almost  the  entire  assembly  stood  up.     Don't 

you  see  how  important  it  is  that  all  motherhood  be  consecrated  ?     Why  did  Titian, 

the  Italian  artist,  when  he  sketched  the  Madonna,  make  it  an  Italian  face  ?      Why 
21 


MOTHER. — From  thr  Painting  by  G.  D.  Leslie 


(322) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I,IFE.  323 

did  Rubens,  the  German  artist,  in  his  Madonna,  make  it  a  German  face  ?  Why- 
did  Joshua  Reynolds,  the  English  artist,  in  his  Madonna,  make  it  an  English  face  ? 
Why  did  Murillo,  the  Spanish  artist,  in  his  Madonna,  make  it  a  Spanish  face  ?  I 
never  heard,  but  I  think  they  took  their  own  mothers  as  the  type  of  Mary,  the 
mother  of  Christ.  When  you  hear  some  one  in  sermon  or  oration  speak  in  the 
abstract  of  a  good,  faithful,  honest  mother  j-our  eyes  fill  up  with  tears,  while  you 
say  to  yourself,  that  was  my  mother.  The  first  word  a  child  utters  is  apt  to  be 
"  Mother,"  and  the  old  man  in  his  dying  dream  calls,  "  Mother  !  Mother  !"  It 
matters  not  whether  she  was  brought  up  in  the  surrounding  of  a  city,  and  in 
affluent  home,  and  was  dressed  appropriately  with  reference  to  the  demands  of 
modern  life,  or  whether  she  wore  the  old-time  cap,  and  great  round  spectacles,  and 
apron  of  her  own  make,  and  knit  you  socks  with  her  own  needles,  seated  by  the 
broad  fire-place,  with  great  black  log  ablaze  on  a  winter  night.  It  matters  not  how 
many  wrinkles  crossed  and  recrossed  her  face,  or  how  much  her  shoulders  stooped 
with  the  burdens  of  a  long  life,  if  you  painted  a  Madonna  hers  would  be  the  face. 
What  a  gentle  hand  she  had  when  we  were  sick,  and  what  a  voice  to  soothe  pain, 
and  was  there  anyone  who  could  so  fill  up  a  room  with  peace,  and  purity,  and  light  ? 
And  what  a  sad  day  that  was  when  we  came  home  and  she  could  greet  us  not, 
for  her  lips  were  forever  still.  Come  back,  mother,  this  Christmas  day,  and  take 
your  old  place,  and  as  ten,  or  twenty,  or  fifty  years  ago,  come  and  open  the  old 
Bible  you  used  to  read,  and  kneel  in  the  same  place  where  you  used  to  pray,  and 
look  upon  us  as  of  old  when  j^ou  wished  us  a  Merry  Christmas  or  a  Happj'  New 
Year,  But  no  !  That  would  not  be  fair  to  call  you  back.  You  had  troubles 
enough,  and  aches  enough,  and  bereavements  enough  while  you  were  here.  Tarry 
by  the  throne,  mother,  till  we  join  you  there,  your  prayers  all  answered,  and  in 
the  eternal  homestead  of  our  God  we  shall  again  keep  Christmas  jubilee  together. 
But  speak  from  your  thrones,  all  you  glorified  mothers,  and  say  to  all  these,  your 
sons  and  daughters,  words  of  love,  words  of  warning,  words  of  cheer.  They  need 
your  voice,  for  they  have  traveled  far  and  with  many  a  heart-break  since  you  left 
them,  and  you  do  well  to  call  from  the  heights  of  heaven  to  the  valleys  of  the 
earth.  Hail,  enthroned  ancestry?  We  are  coming.  Keep  a  place  for  us  right 
beside  you  at  the  banquet. 

Slow-footed  years  !     More  swiftly  run 
Into  the  gold  of  that  unsetting  sun. 
Homesick  we  are  for  thee, 
Calm  land  beyond  the  sea. 


^ntusije«t^ni^4. 


RECREATION   FOR  THE  BODY  GIVES    PEACE  TO  THE  SOUL 

|N  the  Tempel  of  Dagon  there  were  3000  people  assembled. 
They  had  come  to  make  sport  of  eyeless  Samson.  They 
were  all  ready  for  the  entertainment.  They  began  to 
clap  and  pound,  impatient  for  the  amusement  to  begin, 
and  they  cried:  "Fetch  him  out,  fetch  him  out!" 
Yonder  I  see  the  blind  old  giant  coming,  led  by  the  hand 
of  a  child  into  the  very  midst  of  the  temple.  At  his  first 
appearance  there  goes  up  a  sliout  of  laughter  and  derision. 
The  blind  old  giant  pretends  he  is  tired,  and  wants  to 
rest  himself  against  the  pillars  of  the  house;  so  he  says  to  the  lad  who  leads  him: 
"  Show  me  where  the  main  pillars  are."  The  lad  does  so.  Then  the  strong  man 
puts  his  right  hand  on  one  pillar  and  his  left  hand  on  another  pillar,  and,  with  the 
mightiest  push  that  mortal  ever  made,  throws  himself  forward  until  the  whole 
house  comes  dovvn  in  thunderous  crash,  grinding  the  audience  like  grapes  in  a 
winepress.  "And  so  it  came  to  pass,  when  their  hearts  were  merry,  that  they 
said:  '  Call  for  Samson,  that  he  may  make  us^sport.'  And  they  called  for  Sam- 
son out  of  the  prison-house,  and  he  made  them  sport." 

In  other  words:  There  are  amusements  that  are  destructive,  and  bring  down 
disaster  and  death  upon  the  heads  of  those  who  practice  them.  While  they  laugh 
and  cheer,  they  die.  The  3000  who  perished  that  day  in  Gaza  are  as  nothing  when 
compared  to  the  tens  of  thousands  who  have  been  destroyed  by  sinful  amusements. 
But  there  is  a  lawful  use  of  the  world  as  well  as  an  unlawful  abuse  of  it,  and 
the  difference  between  the  man  Christian  and  the  man  unchristian  is  that  in 
the  former  case  the  man  masters  the  world,  while  in  the  latter  case  the  world 
masters  him.  For  whom  did  God  make  this  grand  and  beautiful  world?  For 
whom  this  wonderful  expenditure  of  color,  this  gracefulness  of  line,  this  mosaic 
of  the  ground,  this  fresco  of  the  sky,  this  glowing  fruitage  of  orchard  and  vine- 
yard, this  full  orchestra  of  the  tempest,  in  which  the  tree  branches  flute,  and  the 
winds  trumpet,  and  the  thunders  drum,  and  all  the  splendors  of  earth  and  sky 
come  clashing  their  cymbals  ?  For  whom  did  God  spring  the  arched  bridge  of 
colors  resting  upon  buttresses  of  broken  storm-cloud  ?     For  whom  did  He  gather 

(324) 


(325) 


326  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE 

the  upholstery  of  fire  around  the  window  of  the  setting  sun  ?     For  all  men;  but 
more  especially  for  His  own  dear  children. 

THE  WORLD    FOR  GOD'S  OWN   CHILDREN. 

If  you  build  a  large  mansion  and  spread  a  great  feast  after  it  to  celebrate  the 
completion  of  the  structure,  do  you  allow  strangers  to  come  in  and  occupy  the 
place  while  you  thrust  your  own  children  in  the  kitchen  or  the  barn,  or  the 
fields?  Oh,  no.  You  say,  "  I  am  very  glad  to  see  strangers  in  my  mansion,  but 
my  own  sons  and  daughters  shall  have  the  first  right  there."  Now,  God  has 
built  this  grand  mansion  of  a  world,  and  He  has  spread  a  glorious  feast  in  it;  and 
while  those  who  are  strangers  to  His  grace  may  come  in,  I  think  that  God  espe- 
cially intends  to  give  the  advantage  to  His  own  children,  those  who  are  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  the  Eord  Almighty,  those  who  through  grace  can  look  up  and  say, 
"  Abba,  Father."  You  cannot  make  me  believe  that  God  gives  more  advantages 
to  the  world  than  He  gives  to  the  Church  bought  by  His  own  blood.  If,  there- 
fore, people  of  the  world  have  looked  with  dolorous  sympathy  upon  those  who 
make  profession  of  religion,  and  have  said,  "  Those  new  converts  are  going  down 
into  a  privation  and  into  hardship.  Why  did  not  they  tarry  a  little  longer  in  the 
world,  and  have  some  of  its  enjoyments  and  amusements  and  recreations?"  I  say 
to  such  men  of  the  world,  "  You  are  greatly  mistaken,"  and  before  I  get  through 
I  will  show  that  those  people  who  stay  out  of  the  kingdom  of  God  have  the  hard- 
ships and  self-denials,  while  those  who  come  in  have  the  joys  and  the  satis- 
factions. 

In  the  name  of  the  King  of  heaven  and  earth,  I  serve  a  writ  of  ejectment 
upon  all  the  sinful  and  polluted  who  have  squatted  on  the  domain  of  earthly 
pleasure  as  though  it  belonged  to  them,  while  I  claim  in  behalf  of  the  good,  and 
the  pure,  and  the  true,  the  eternal  inheritance  which  God  has  given  them. 
Hitherto  Christian  philanthropists,  clerical  and  lay,  have  busied  themselves  chieflj^ 
in  denouncing  sinful  recreations,  but  I  feel  we  have  no  right  to  stand  before  men 
and  women  in  whose  hearts  there  is  a  desire  for  recreation  amounting  to  positive 
necessity,  denouncing  this  and  that  and  the  other  thing,  when  we  do  not  propose 
to  give  them  something  better.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  lay  before  you  some  of  the 
recreations  which  are  not  only  innocent,  but  positively  helpful  and  advantageous. 

In  the  first  place,  I  commend,  among  indoor  recreations,  music,  vocal  and 
instrumental.  Among  the  first  things  created  was  the  bird,  so  that  the  earth 
might  have  music  at  the  start.  This  world  which  began  with  so  sweet  a  sere- 
nade, is  finally  to  be  demolished  amidst  the  ringing  blast  of  the  archangel's 
trumpet,  so  that  as  there  was  music  at  the  start,  there  shall  be  music  at  the  close. 
While  this  heavenly  art  has  often  been  dragged  into  the  uses  of  superstition  and 
dissipation,  we  all  know  it  may  be  the  means  of  high  moral  culture.     Oh,  it  is  a 


THE    HOME   CHOIR. 


(327) 


328  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

grand  thing  to  have  our  children  brought  up  amidst  the  sound  of  cultured  voices 
and  amidst  the  melody  of  musical  instruments.  There  is  in  this  art  an  inde- 
scribable fascination  for  the  household.  Let  all  those  families  who  have  the 
means  to  afford  it,  have  flute  or  harp,  or  piano  or  organ.  As  soon  as  the  hand  is 
large  enough  to  compass  the  keys,  teach  it  how  to  pick  out  the  melody.  Let  all 
our  young  men  try  this  heavenly  art  upon  their  nature.  Those  who  have  gone 
into  it  fully  have  found  in  it  illimitable  recreation  and  amusement.  Dark  days, 
stormy  nights,  seasons  of  sickness,  business  disasters,  will  do  little  toward 
depressing  the  soul  which  can  gallop  off  over  musical  keys  or  soar  in  jubilant 
lay.  It  wdll  cure  pain.  It  will  rest  fatigue.  It  will  quell  passion.  It  will  revive 
health.  It  will  reclaim  dissipation.  It  will  strengthen  the  immortal  soul.  In 
the  battle  of  Waterloo,  Wellington  saw  that  the  Highlanders  were  falling  back. 
He  said:  "  What  is  the  matter  there?"  He  was  told  that  the  band  of  music  had 
ceased  playing,  and  he  called  up  the  pipers  and  ordered  them  to  strike  up  an 
inspiriting  air;  and  no  sooner  did  they  strike  the  air  than  the  Highlanders  were 
rallied  and  helped  to  win  the  day.  Oh,  ye  who  have  been  routed  in  conflicts  of 
life,  try  b}^  the  force  of  music  to  rally  your  scattered  battalions. 

MUSICAL  ENTERTAINMENTS  SHOULD   BE  PATRONIZED. 

I  am  glad  to  know  that  in  our  great  cities  there  is  hardly  a  night  in  which 
there  are  not  concerts,  where,  with  the  best  musical  instruments  and  the  sweetest 
voices,  people  may  find  entertainment.  Patronize  such  entertainments  when  they 
are  afforded  you.  Buy  season  tickets  if  you  can,  for  the  Philharmonic  and  the 
Handel  and  Haydn  societies.  Feel  that  $i  .50  or  $2  that  you  spend  for  the  purpose 
of  hearing  an  artist  play  or  sing  is  a  profitable  investment.  Let  your  Steinway 
Halls  and  your  Academies  of  Music  roar  with  the  acclamation  of  appreciative 
audiences  assembled  at  the  concert  or  the  oratorio. 

Still  further,  I  commend  as  worthy  of  their  support  the  gymnasium.  This 
institution  is  gaining  in  favor  every  j-ear,  and  I  know  of  nothing  more  free  from 
dissipation  or  more  calculated  to  recuperate  the  physical  and  mental  energies. 
While  there  are  a  good  many  people  who  have  employed  this  institution,  there  is 
a  vast  number  who  are  ignorant  of  its  excellence.  There  are  men  with  cramped 
chests  and  weak  sides  and  despondent  spirits,  who,  through  the  gymnasium,  might 
be  roused  up  to  exuberance  and  exhilaration  of  life.  There  are  many  Christian 
people  despondent  from  year  to  year,  who  might,  through  such  an  institution,  be 
benefited  in  their  spiritual  relations.  There  are  Christian  people  who  seem  to 
think  that  it  is  a  good  sign  to  be  poorly;  and  because  Richard  Baxter  and  Robert 
Hall  were  invalids,  they  think  that  by  the  same  sickliness  they  may  come  to  the 
same  grandeur  of  character.  I  want  to  tell  the  Christian  people  of  this  country 
and  all  countries,  that  God  will  hold  you  responsible  for  your  invalidism  if  it  is 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


329 


your  fault,  and  when  through  right  exercise  and  prudence  you  might  be  athletic 
and  well.  The  efifect  of  the  body  upon  the  soul  you  acknowledge.  Put  a  man  of 
mild  disposition  upon  the  animal  diet  of  which  the  Indian  partakes  and  in  a  little 


MEDITAXlVJi   KXPKCTANCY. 


while  his  blood  will  change  its  chemical  proportions.  It  will  become  like  unto  the 
blood  of  the  lion,  or  the  tiger,  or  the  bear,  while  his  disposition  will  change  and 
become  fierce,  cruel  and  unrelenting.     The  body  has  powerful  effect  upon  the  soul. 


330  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

There  are  good  people  whose  ideas  of  heaven  are  all  shut  out  with  clouds  of 
tobacco  smoke.  There  are  people  who  dare  to  shatter  the  phj-sical  vase  in  which 
God  has  put  the  jewel  of  eternity.  There  are  men  with  great  hearts  and  intellects 
in  bodies  worn  out  by  their  own  neglects — magnificent  machinery,  capable  of 
propelling  a  Great  Eastern  across  the  Atlantic,  yet  fastened  in  a  rickety  North 
River  propeller.  Martin  L,uther  was  so  mighty  for  God,  first,  because  he  had  a 
noble  soul,  and  secondly,  because  he  had  a  muscular  development  which  would 
have  enabled  him  to  thrash  any  five  of  his  persecutors,  if  it  had  been  Christian  so 
to  do.  Physical  development  which  merely  shows  itself  in  fabulous  lifting,  or  in 
perilous  rope- walking,  or  in  pugilistic  encounter,  excites  only  our  contempt;  but 
we  confess  to  great  admiration  for  the  man  who  has  a  great  soul  in  an  athletic 
body,  every  nerv^e," muscle  and  bone  of  which  is  consecrated  to  right  uses.  Oh,  it 
seems  to  me  outrageous  that  men,  through  neglect,  should  allow  their  physical 
health  to  go  down  beyond  repair.  A  ship  which  ought,  with  all  sail  set  and  every 
man  at  his  post,  to  be  carrying  a  rich  cargo  for  eternity,  employing  all  its  men  in 
stopping  up  leakages.  When  j^ou  may,  through  the  gymnasium,  work  off  your 
spleen  and  your  querulousness  and  one-half  of  your  physical  and  mental  ailments, 
do  not  turn  your  back  upon  such  a  grand  medicament. 

PARLOR  GAMES  COMMENDED. 

Still  further:  I  commend  to  you  a  large  class  of  parlor  games  and  recreations. 
There  is  a  way  of  making  our  homes  a  hundred- fold  more  attractive  than  they  are 
now.  Those  parents  cannot  expect  to  keep  their  children  away  from  outside  dis- 
sipation unless  they  make  the  domestic  circle  brighter  than  anything  they  can  find 
outside  of  it.  Do  not,  then,  sit  in  3'our  home  surly  and  unsympathetic,  and  with 
a  half-condemnatory  look,  because  of  the  sportfulness  of  your  children.  You 
were  young  once  yourself;  let  your  children  be  young.  Because  your  eyes  are 
dim  and  your  ankles  are  stiff,  do  not  denounce  sportfulness  in  those  upon  whose 
eyes  there  is  the  first  lustre,  and  in  whose  foot  there  is  the  bounding  J03'  of  robust 
health.  I  thank  God  that  in  our  drawing  rooms  and  in  our  parlors  there  are 
innumerable  games  and  sports  which  have  not  upon  them  the  least  taint  of 
iniquity.  Light  up  all  your  homes  with  innocent  hilarities.  Do  not  sit  down 
with  the  rheumatism,  wondering  how  children  can  go  on  so.  Rather  thank  God 
that  their  hearts  are  so  light,  and  their  laughter  is  so  free,  and  that  their  cheeks 
are  so  ruddy,  and  that  their  expectations  are  so  radiant.  The  night  will  come 
soon  enough,  and  the  heart-break  and  the  pang  and  the  desolation — it  will  come 
soon  enough  for  the  dear  children.  But  when  the  storm  actuall}'  clouds  the  sk}', 
it  will  be  time  enough  for  you  to  haul  out  your  reef  tackles.  Carry,  then,  into 
your  homes  not  only  the  innocent  .sports  and  games  which  are  the  inventions  of 
our  own  day,  but  the  games  which  come  down  with  the  sportfulness  of  all  the 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  331 

past  ages — chess,  and  charades,  and  tableaux,  and  battledore,  and  calisthenics,  and 
lawn-tennis,  and  all  those  amusements  which  the  young  people  of  our  homes  know 
so  well  how  to  contrive.  Then  there  will  be  the  parlor  socialities — groups  of  people 
assembled  in  your  homes,  with  wit  and  mimicry  and  joviality,  filling  the  room  with 
joy  from  the  door  to  the  mantel,  and  from  the  carpet  to  the  ceiling.  Oh,  is  there 
any  exhilaration  like  a  score  of  genial  souls  in  one  room,  each  one  adding  a  contri- 
bution of  his  own  individual  merriment  to  the  aggregation  of  general  hilarity  ? 

Suppose  you  want  to  go  abroad  in  the  city,  then  you  will  find  the  panorama 
and  the  art  gallery,  and  exquisite  collections  of  pictures.  You  will  find  the 
Metropolitan  Museum  and  the  Historical  Society  rooms  full  of  rare  curiosities, 
and  scores  of  places  which  can  stand  plainly  the  test  of  what  is  right  and  wrong 
in  amusements.  You  will  find  the  lecturing  hall,  which  has  been  honored  by  the 
names  of  Agassiz  in  natural  history,  Doremus  in  chemistry,  Boynton  in  geology, 
Mitchell  in  astronomy,  and  scores  and  hundreds  of  men  who  have  poured  their 
wit  and  genius  and  ingenuity  through  that  particular  channel  upon  the  hearts  and 
consciences  and  imaginations  of  men,  setting  this  country  fifty  years  farther  in 
advance  than  it  would  have  been  without  the  lecture  platform. 

OUT-DOOR  SPORTS. 

I  rejoice  in  the  popularization  of  out-door  sports.  I  hail  the  croquet  ground, 
and  the  fisherman's  rod,  and  the  sportsman's  gun.  In  our  cities  life  is  so 
unhealthy  and  unnatural  that  when  the  census-taker  represents  a  city  as  having 
400,000  inhabitants,  there  are  only  200,000,  since  it  takes  about  two  men  to  amount 
to  only  one  man,  so  depleting  and  unnerving  and  exhausting  is  this  metropolitan 
life.  We  want  more  fresh  air,  more  sunlight,  more  of  the  abandon  of  field  sports. 
I  cry  out  for  it  in  behalf  of  the  Church  of  God,  as  well  as  in  behalf  of  secular 
interests.  I  wish  that  every  winter  our  ponds,  and  our  rivers,  and  our  Capitoline 
grounds  might  be  all  aquake  with  the  heel  and  the  shout  of  the  swift  skater.  I 
wish  that  when  the  warm  weather  comes,  the  graceful  oar  might  dip  the  stream, 
and  the  evenirigtide  be  resonant  with  boatman's  song,  the  bright  prow  splitting 
the  crystalline  billow.  We  shall  have  the  smooth  and  grassy  lawn,  and  we  will 
call  out  people  of  all  occupations  and  professions  and  ask  them  to  join  in  the  ball- 
player's  sport.  You  will  come  back  from  these  out-door  exercises  and  recreations 
with  strength  in  your  arm,  and  color  in  your  cheek,  and  a  flash  in  your  eye,  and 
courage  in  your  heart.  In  this  great  battle  that  is  opening  against  the  kingdom 
of  darkness  we  want  not  only  a  consecrated  soul,  but  a  strong  arm  and  stout  lungs 
and  mighty  muscles.  I  bless?  God  that  there  are  so  many  recreations  that  have  not 
on  them  any  tain<"  6F  iniquity;  recreations  in  which  we  may  engage  for  the 
strengthening  of  the  body,  for  the  clearmg  of  the  intellect,  for  the  illumination  of 
the  soul. 


332 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


There  is  still  another  form  of  recreation  which  I  commend  to  you,  and  that  is 
the  pleasure  of  doing  good.  I  have  seen  young  men,  weak,  and  cross,  and  sour, 
and  repelling  in  their  disposition,  who  by  one  heavenly  touch  have  wakened  up 
and  become  blessed  and  buoyant,  the  ground  under  their  feet  and  the  sky  over 
their  heads  breaking  forth  into  music.  "  Oh,"  says  some  young  man  in  the  house 
to-day,  ' '  I  should  like  that  recreation  above  all  others,  but  I  have  not  the  means. ' ' 
My  dear  brothers,  let  us  take  an  account  of  stock  this  morning.  You  have  a 
large  estate,  if  you  only  realize  it — two  hands,  two  feet.  You  will  have,  perhaps, 
during  the  next  year,  at  least  ten  dollars  for  charitable  contribution.     You  will 


THE  QUEEN'S  SHII.LING. — Fvovi  the  Painting  by  Phit  Morris. 

have  2500  cheerful  looks  if  you  want  to  employ  them.  You  will  have  5000  pleas- 
ant words,  if  you  want  to  speak  them.  Now,  what  an  amount  that  is  to  start  with! 
You  go  out  to-morrow  morning,  and  you  see  a  case  of  real  destitution  by  the 
wayside.  You  give  him  two  cents.  The  blind  man  hears  the  pennies  rattle  in  his 
hat,  and  he  says:  "Thank  you,  sir;  God  bless  you."  You  pass  down  the  street, 
trying  to  look  indifferent,  but  you  feel  from  the  very  depths  of  your  soul  a  pro- 
found satisfaction  that  you  made  that  man  happy.  You  go  on  still  farther,  and 
find  a  poor  boy  with  a  wheelbarrow,  trying  to  get  it  up  on  the  curbstone.     He  fails 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  333 

in  the  attempt.  You  say:  "Stand  back,  my  lad,  let  me  try."  You  push  it  up 
on  the  curbstone  for  him  and  pass  on.  He  wonders  who  that  well-dressed  man 
was  that  helped  him.  You  did  a  kindness  to  the  boy,  but  you  did  a  great  joy  to 
your  own  soul.     You  will  not  get  over  it  all  the  week. 

CHEERFUL  LOOKS. 

On  the  street  you  will  see  a  sick  man  passing  along.  "Ah,"  you  say, 
"  what  can  I  do  to  make  this  man  happ}^?  He  certainly  does  not  want  money; 
he  is  not  poor,  but  he  is  sick."  Give  him  one  of  those  2500  cheerful  looks  that 
you  have  garnered  up  for  the  whole  year.  Look  joy  and  hopefulness  into  his 
soul.  It  will  thrill  him  through,  and  there  will  be  a  reaction  upon  your  own  soul. 
Going  a  little  farther  on  you  will  come  to  the  store  of  a  friend  who  is  embarrassed 
in  business  matters.  You  will  go  in  and  say:  "  What  a  fine  store  j^ou  have.  I 
think  business  will  brighten  up,  and  you  will  have  more  custom  after  a  while.  I 
think  there  is  coming  a  great  prosperity  to  all  the  country.  Good  morning." 
You  pass  out.  You  have  helped  that  young  man,  and  you  have  helped  yourself. 
And  that  night  you  go  home;  you  sit  by  the  fire,  you  talk  a  little,  you  sing  a  little, 
you  laugh  a  little;  you  say:  "  I  really  don't  know  what  is  the  matter  with  me. 
I  never  felt  so  splendidly  in  my  life."  I  will  tell  what  is  the  matter  with  you. 
You  spent  only  two  cents  out  of  the  ten  dollars;  you  have  contributed  one  out  of 
2500  cheerful  looks;  you  have  given  ten,  fifteen  or  twenty  of  the  5000  pleasant 
words  you  are  going  to  speak  during  the  year;  you  have,  with  your  own  hands, 
helped  the  boy  with  the  wheelbarrow,  and  you  feel  in  body,  mind  and  soul 
the  thrill  of  that  recreation.  Which  do  you  think  was  the  happier — Colonel 
Gardiner,  who  sat  with  his  elbow  on  a  table  spread  with  all  extravagant 
viands,  looking  off  at  a  dog  on  the  rug,  saying:  "  How  I  would  like  to 
change  places  with  him,  I  be  the  dog  and  he  be  Colonel  Gardiner;"  or 
those  two  Moravian  missionaries  who  wanted  to  go  into  the  lazaretto  for  the 
sake  of  attending  the  sick,  and  they  were  told:  "If  you  go  in  there  you 
will  never  come  out.  We  never  allow  anyone  to  come  out,  for  he  would  bring 
the  contagion  ?" 

Then  they  made  their  wills  and  went  in,  first  to  help  the  sick  and  then  to  die. 
Which  was  the  happier,  Colonel  Gardiner,  or  the  Moravian  missionaries  dying  for 
others  ?  Was  it  all  sacrifice  when  the  missionaries  wanted  to  bring  the  gospel  to 
the  negroes  at  the  Barbadoes,  and,  being  denied  the  privilege,  sold  themselves  into 
slavery,  standing  side  by  side,  and  lying  side  by  side  down  in  the  very  ditch  of 
suffering,  in  order  that  they  might  bring  those  men  up  to  life  and  God  and 
heaven?  Oh,  there  is  a  thrill  in  the  joy  of  doing  good!  It  is  the  most 
magnificent  recreation  to  which  a  man  ever  puts  his  hand,  or  his  head,  or 
his  heart. 


3,U 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFH. 


THE  RESULT   OF  SINFUL  AMUSEMENT. 

But  furthermore,  I  want  to  impress  upon  you  that  mere  secular  entertainments 
are  not  a  fit  foundation  for  your  soul  to  build  on.  I  was  reading  of  a  woman  who 
had  gone  all  the  rounds  of  sinful  amusement,  and  she  came  to  die.  She  said,  "  I 
will  die  to-night  at  six  o'clock. "  "  Oh, ' '  they  said,  ' '  I  guess  not;  you  don't  seem 
to  be  sick."  "  I  shall  die  at  six  o'clock,  and  my  soul  will  be  lost,  I  know  it  will 
be  lost;  I  have  sinned  away  my  day  of  grace."  The  noon  came.  They  desired 
to  seek  religious  counsel. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "it  is  of  no  use.  My  day  is  gone.  I  have  been  all  the 
rounds  of  worldly  pleasure,  and  it  is  too  late.  I  shall  die  to-night  at  six  o'clock." 
The  day  wore  awaj',  and  it  came  to  four  o'clock,  and  to  five  o'clock,  and  she  cried 
out  at  five  o'clock,  "  Destroyed  spirits,  ye  shall  not  have  me  yet;  it  is  not  six,  it 
is  not  six."  The  moments  went  by,  and  the  shadows  began  to  gather,  and  the 
clock  struck  six;  and  while  it  was  striking  her  soul  went  out.  What  hour  God 
will  call  for  us  I  do  not  know — whether  six  o'clock  to-night,  or  three  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  or  at  one  o'clock,  or  at  this  moment.  Sitting  where  you  are,  falling 
forward,  or  standing  where  you  are,  dropping  down,  where  would  you  go  to? 

But  our  hour  for  adjourning  is  hastening,  and  the  last  hour  of  our  life  will 
soon  be  here,  and  from  that  hour  we  will  review  our  trials  and  lost  opportunities. 
It  will  be  a  solemn  hour.  If  from  our  death-pillow  we  have  to  look  back  and  see 
a  life  spent  in  sinful  amusement,  there  will  be  a  dart  that  will  strike  through  our 
soul  sharper  than  the  dagger  with  which  Virginius  slew  his  child.  The  memory 
of  the  past  will  make  us  quake  like  Macbeth.  The  iniquities  and  rioting  through 
which  we  have  passed  will  come  upon  us  weird  and  skeleton  as  Meg  Merrilles. 
Death,  the  old  Shylock,  will  demand  and  take  the  remaining  pound  of  flesh  and 
the  remaining  drop  of  blood;  and  upon  our  last  opportunity  for  repentance,  and 
our  la.st  chance  for  heaven,  the  curtain  will  forever  drop. 


®l>Utir^n. 


COUNSEL   UPON    PARENTAL   DUTY  AND   RESPONSIBILITY- 
SEVERITY  AND   OVER-INDULGENCE. 

GOOD  man  was  Judge  EH,  as  described  in  the  Book  Samuel, 
but  he  let  his  two  boys,  Hophni  and  Phinehas,  do  as  they 
pleased,  and  through  over-indulgence  they  went  to  ruin. 
The  blind  old  Judge,  ninety-eight  years  of  age,  is  seated 
at  the  gate  waiting  for  the  news  of  an  important  battle  in 
which  his  two  sons  were  at  the  front.  An  express  is 
coming  with  tidings  from  the  battle.  This  blind  nonagen- 
arian puts  his  hand  behind  his  ear,  and  listens,  and  cries: 
"  What  meaneth  the  noise  of  this  tumult?"  An  excited  messenger, 
all  out  of  breath  with  the  speed,  said  to  him:  "  Our  army  is  defeated. 
The  sacred  chest,  called  the  Ark,  is  captured,  and  your  sons  are  dead 
on  the  field."  No  wonder  the  father  fainted  and  expired.  The 
domestic  tragedy  in  which  these  two  sons  were  the  tragedians  had 
finished  its  fifth  and  last  act.  ' '  He  fell  from  off  the  seat  backward  by 
the  side  of  the  gate,  and  his  neck  brake,  and  he  died:  for  he  was  an 
old  man,  and  heavy."  Eli  had  made  an  awful  mistake  in  regard  to 
his  children.  The  Bible  distinctly  says:  "  His  sons  made  themselves  vile  and  he 
restrained  them  not."  Oh,  the  10,000  mistakes  in  rearing  children,  mistakes  of 
parents,  mistakes  of  teachers  in  day-school  and  Sabbath-classes,  mistakes  which 
we  all  make.     Will  it  not  be  useful  to  consider  them  ? 

THE  ALL-CONQUERING  ARMY. 

This  country  is  going  to  be  conquered  b}^  a  great  arm}^  compared  with  which 
that  of  Baldwin  I.,  and  Xerxes,  and  Alexander,  and  Grant,  and  Lee,  all  put 
together,  were  in  numbers  insignificant.  They  will  capture  all  the  pulpits,  store- 
houses, factories  and  halls  of  legislation,  all  our  shipping,  all  our  wealth,  and  all 
our  honors.  They  will  take  possession  of  all  authority,  from  the  United  States 
presidency  down  to  the  humblest  constabulary — of  everything  between  the  Atlantic 
and  Pacific  Oceans.  They  are  on  the  march  now,  and  they  halt  neither  daj^  nor 
night.  They  will  soon  be  here,  and  all  the  present  active  population  of  this 
■country  must  surrender  and  give  way.     I  refer  to  the  great  army  of  children. 


336 


PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


Whether  they  shall  take  possession  of  ever}- thing  for  good  or  for  bad  depends 
upon  the  style  of  preparation  through  which  they  pass  on  their  way  from  cradle 
to  throne.  Cicero  acknowledges  he  kept  in  his  desk  a  collection  of  prefaces  for 
books,  which  prefaces  he  could  at  any  time  attach  to  anything  he  wanted  to 
publish  for  himself  or  others;  and  all  parents  and  teachers  have  all  prepared  the 


THE  FIRST  STEP. — Froui  the  Painting  by  Frank  Pen/old. 

preface  of  every  young  life  under  their  charge,  and  not  only  the  preface,  but  the 
appendix,  whether  the  volume  be  a  poem  or  a  farce.  Families,  and  schools,  and 
legislatures  are  in  our  day  busily  engaged  in  di.scussing  what  is  the  best  mode  of 
educating  children.  Before  this  question  almost  every  other  dwindles  into  insig- 
nificance, while  dependent  upon  its  proper  solution  is  the  welfare  of  government 
and  ages  eternal.     Macaulay  tells  of  the  vvar  which  Frederick  II.  made  against 


(337) 


^3« 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


Queen  Maria  Theresa.  And  one  da}'  she  appeared  before  the  august  Diet  wearing 
mourning  for  her  father,  and  held  up  in  her  arms  before  them  her  child,  the  Arch- 
duke. This  so  wrought 
upon  the  officers  and 
deputies  of  the  people 
that  with  half- drawn 
swords  they  broke  forth 
in  the  war  cry,  "  Let  us 
die  for  our  Queen,  Maria 
Theresa  !" 

So  realizing  that  the 
bo}'  of  to-day  is  to  be  the 
ruler  of  the  future,  the 
popular  sovereign,  I  hold 
him  before  the  American 
people  to  arouse  their 
enthusiasm  in  his  behalf, 
and  to  evoke  their  oath 
for  his  defence,  his  edu- 
cation, and  his  sublime 
destiny. 

If  a  parent,  you  will 
remember  when  j-ou  were 
aroused  to  these  great  re- 
sponsibilities, and  when 
you  found  that  j'ou  had 
not  done  all  required 
after  you  had  admired 
the  tiny  hands,  and  the 
glossy  hair,  and  the 
bright  eyes  that  lay  in 
the  cradle,  you  suddenly 
remembered  that  that 
hand  would  yet  be  raised 
to  bless  the  world  with 
its  benediction,  or  to 
smite  it  with  a  curse. 

In  Ariosto's  great 
poem  there  is  a  character 
called  Ruggiero,  who  has 


THE   QUEEN   OF  THE   BARNYARD. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


339 


a  shield  of  insufferable  splendor,  but  it  is  kept  veiled,  save  on  certain  occasions, 
and  when  uncovered  it  startled  and  overwhelmed  its  beholder,  who  before  had  no 
suspicion  of  its  brightness.  My  hope  here  is  to  uncover  the  destiny  of  your 
•child  or  student,  about  which  you  may  have  no  especial  appreciation,  and  flash 


THE  CHIMNEY  SWEEP. — From  tlic  Painting-  by  /\  D.  Hardy. 

upon  you  the  splendors  of  its  immortal  nature.  Behold  the  shield  and  the  sword 
of  its  coming  conflict. 

I  propose  in  this  essay  to  set  forth  what  I  consider  to  be  some  of  the  errors 
prevalent  in  the  training  of  children. 

First,  I  remark  that  many  err  in  too  great  severit}^  or  too  great  leniency  of 
family  government.  Between  parental  tyranny  and  ruinous  laxativeness  of  dis- 
jcipline  there  is  a  medium.     Sometimes  the  father  errs  on  one  side  and  the  mother 


340  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

on  the  other  side.  Good  family  government  is  all-important.  Anarchy  and  mis- 
rule in  the  domestic  circle  is  the  forerunner  of  anarchy  and  misrule  in  the  State. 
What  a  repulsive  spectacle  is  a  home  without  order  or  discipline;  disobedience  and 
impudence,  and  anger,  and  falsehood  lifting  their  horrid  front  in  the  place  which 
should  be  consecrated  to  all  that  is  holy  and  peaceful  and  beautiful.  In  the 
attempt  to  avoid  all  this,  and  bring  the, children  under  proper  laws  and  regula- 
tions, parents  have  sometimes  carried  themselves  with  great  rigor.  John  Howard, 
who  was  merciful  to  the  prisons  and  lazarettos,  was  merciless  in  the  treatment  of 
his  children. 

JOHN   MILTON'S  DOMESTIC  BLUNDERS. 

John  Milton  knew  everything  but  how  to  train  his  family.  Severe  and 
unreasonable  was  he  in  his  carriage  toward  them.  He  made  them  read  to  him  in 
four  or  five  languages,  but  would  not  allow  them  to  learn  any  of  them,  for  he  said 
that  one  tongue  was  enough  for  a  woman.  Their  reading  was  mechanical 
drudgery,  when,  if  they  had  understood  the  languages  they  read,  the  employment 
o^  reading  might  have  been  a  luxury.  No  wonder  his  children  despised  him,  and 
stealthily  sold  his  books,  and  hoped  for  his  death.  In  all  ages  there  has  been 
need  of  a  society  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  children.  When  Barbara  was 
put  to  death  by  her  father  because  she  had  countermanded  his  order,  and  had 
three  windows  put  in  a  room  instead  of  two,  this  cruel  parent  was  a  type  of  many 
who  had  acted  the  Nero  and  the  Robespierre  in  the  home  circle.  The  heart 
sickens  at  what  you  sometimes  see,  even  in  families  that  pretend  to  be  Christian- 
perpetual  scolding,  and  hair  pulling,  and  ear  boxing,  and  thumping,  and  stamp- 
ing, and  fault-finding,  and  teasing,  until  the  children  are  vexed  beyond  bounds 
and  growl  in  the  sleeve,  and  pout,  and  rebel,  and  vow  within  themselves  that  in 
after-days  they  will  retaliate  for  the  cruelties  practiced.  Many  a  home  has  become 
as  full  of  dispute  as  was  the  home  of  John  O' Groat,  who  built  his  house  at  the 
most  northerly  point  in  Great  Britain.  And  tradition  says  that  the  house  had 
eight  windows  and  eight  doors,  and  a  table  of  eight  sides,  because  he  had  eight 
children,  and  the  only  way  to  keep  them  out  of  bitter  quarrel  was  to  have  a 
.separate  apartment  for  each  one  of  them. 

That  child's  nature  is  too  delicate  to  be  worked  upon  by  sledge-hammer  and 
gouge  and  pile-driver.  Such  fierce  lashing,  instead  of  breaking  the  high  mettle 
to  bit  and  trace,  will  make  it  dash  off  the  more  uncontrollable.  Many  seem  to 
think  that  children  are  flax — not  fit  to  use  till  they  have  been  hackled  and 
swingled.  Some  one  talking  to  a  child  said:  "  I  wonder  what  makes  that  tree 
out  there  so  crooked?"  The  child  replied:  "I  suppose  it  was  trod  on  while  it 
was  young. " 


iMilllMiMMki. 

Tiiu  PLGiusTic  PVPiz.—From  the  Painting  by  Shut ze.  (341) 


342  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFK. 

THE    FAMILY   SCAPEGOAT. 

In  some  families  all  the  discipline  is  concentrated  upon  one  child's  head.  If 
anything  is  done  wrong  the  supposition  is  that  George  did  it.  He  broke  the 
latch.  He  left  open  the  gate.  He  hacked  the  banisters.  He  whittled  sticks  on 
the  carpets.  And  George  shall  be  the  scapegoat  for  all  domestic  misunderstand- 
ings and  suspicions.  If  things  get  wrong  in  the  culinary  department,  in  comes 
the  mother  and  says,  angrily:  "Where  is  George?"  If  business  matters  are 
perplexing  at  the  store,  in  comes  the  father  at  night  and  says,  angrily:  "  Where 
is  George  ?' '  In  many  a  household  there  is  such  a  one  singled  out  for  suspicion 
and  castigation.  All  the  sweet  flowers  of  his  soul  blasted  under  this  perpetual 
northeast  storm.  He  curses  the  day  in  which  he  was  born.  Safer  the  child  in  an 
ark  of  bulrushes  on  the  Nile,  among  crocodiles,  than  in  an  elegant  mansion,  amid 
such  domestic  Gorgons.  A  mother  was  passing  along  the  street  one  day  and  came 
up  to  her  little  child,  who  did  not  see  her  approach,  and  her  child  was  saying  to 
her  playmate:  "  You  good-for-nothing  little  scamp,  you  come  right  into  the  house 
this  minute,  or  I  will  beat  you  till  the  skin  comes  off."  The  mother  broke  in, 
saying:  "  Why,  Lizzie,  I  am  surprised  to  hear  you  talk  like  that  to  any  one  !" 
"Oh,"  said  the  child,  "I  was  only  playing,  and  he  is  my  little  bo}^,  and  I  am 
scolding  him,  as  you  did  me  this  morning."  Children  are  apt  to  be  echoes  of 
their  parents. 

Safer  in  a  Bethlehem  manger  among  cattle  and  camels,  with  gentle  Mary  tO' 
watch  the  little  innocent,  than  in  the  most  extravagant  nursery  over  which  God's 
star  of  peace  never  stood.  The  trapper  extinguishes  the  flames  on  the  prairie  by- 
fighting  fire  with  fire,  but  you  cannot,  with  the  fire  of  your  own  disposition,  put 
out  the  fire  of  a  child's  disposition. 

DANGERS  OF  OVER-INDULGENCE. 

Yet  we  may  rush  to  the  other  extreme  and  ruin  children  by  too  great  leniency. 
The  surgeon  is  not  unkind  because,  notwithstanding  the  resistance  of  his  patient, 
he  goes  straight  on  with  firm  hand  and  unfaltering  heart  to  take  off  the  gangrene. 
Nor  is  the  parent  less  affectionate  and  faithful  because,  notwithstanding  all  violent 
remonstrances  on  the  part  of  the  child,  he,  with  the  firmest  discipline,  advances  to 
the  cutting  off  of  the  evil  inclinations.  The  Bible  says:  "  Chasten  thy  son  while 
there  is  hope,  and  let  not  thy  soul  spare  for  his  crying." 

Childish  rage  unchecked  will,  after  a  while,  become  a  hurricane.  Childish 
petulance  will  grow  up  into  misanthropy.  Childish  rebellion  will  develop  into 
the  lawlessness  of  riot  and  sedition.  If  3'ou  would  ruin  the  child,  dance  to  his 
every  caprice  and  stuff  him  with  confectionery.  Before  you  are  aware  of  it  that 
boy  of  six  years  will  go  down  the  street,  a  cigar  in  his  mouth,  and  ready  on  any 
corner  with  his  comrades  to  compare  pugilistic  attainments.     The  parent  who 


-4^ 


INDULGENCE — THE   RIVAL   GRANDFATHERS. 


1343) 


344  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

allows  the  child  to  grow  up  without  ever  having  learned  the  great  dutj^  of 
obedience  and  submission  has  prepared  a  cup  of  burning  gall  for  his  own  lips 
and  appalling  destruction  for  his  descendant.  Remember  Eli  and  his  two  sons, 
Hoplmi  and  Phinehas. 

A  second  error  prevalent  in  the  training  of  children  is  the  laying  out  of  a 
theory  and  following  it  without  arranging  it  to  varieties  of  disposition.  In  every 
family  you  will  find  striking  differences  of  temperament.  This  child  is  too  timid, 
and  that  too  bold;  and  this  too  miserly,  and  that  too  wasteful;  this  too  inactive, 
and  that  too  boisterous.  Now,  the  farmer,  who  should  plant  corn  and  wheat  and 
turnips  in  just  the  same  way,  then  put  them  through  one  hopper  and  grind  them 
in  the  same  mill,  would  not  be  so  much  of  a  fool  as  the  parents  who  would 
attempt  to  discipline  and  educate  all  their  children  in  the  same  manner.  It  needs 
a  skillful  hand  to  adjust  these  checks  and  balances.  The  rigidity  of  gov^^rnment 
which  is  necessary  to  hold  in  this  impetuous  nature  would  utterly  crush  that 
flexible  disposition,  while  the  gentle  reproof  that  would  suffice  for  the  latter 
would,  when  used  on  the  former,  be  like  attempting  to  hold  a  champing  Bucepha- 
lus with  reins  of  gossamer, 

GOD'S  HINTS  TO   PARENTS. 

God  gives  us,  in  the  disposition  of  each  child,  a  hint  as  to  how  we  ought  to 
train  him,  and  as  God,  in  the  mental  structure  of  our  children,  indicates  what 
mode  of  training  is  the  best,  He  also  indicates,  in  the  disposition,  their  future 
occupation.  Do  not  write  down  that  child  as  dull  because  it  may  not  now  be  as 
brilliant  as  your  other  children  or  as  those  of  your  neighbor.  Some  of  the 
mightiest  men  and  women  of  the  centuries  had  a  stupid  childhood.  Thomas 
Aquinas  was  called  at  school  ' '  the  dumb  ox, ' '  but  afterward  demonstrated  his 
sanctified  genius  and  was  called  ' '  the  angel  of  the  schools ' '  and  ' '  the  eagle  of 
Brittany."  Kindness  and  patience  with  a  child  will  conquer  almost  anything, 
and  they  are  virtues  so  Christ-like  that  they  are  inspiring  to  look  at.  John 
Wesley's  kiss  of  a  child  on  the  pulpit  stairs  turned  Mathias  Joyce  from  a  profli- 
gate into  a  flaming  evangel. 

The  third  error  prevalent  in  the  training  of  children  is  the  one-sided  develop- 
ment of  either  the  physical,  intellectual,  or  moral  nature  at  the  expense  of  the 
others.  Those,  for  instance,  greatly  mistake  who,  while  they  are  faithful  in  the 
intellectual  and  moral  culture  of  children,  forget  the  physical.  The  bright  eyes 
half-quenched  by  night  study,  the  cramped  chest  that  comes  from  too  much 
bending  over  school-desks,  the  weak  side  resulting  from  sedentariness  of  habit, 
pale  cheeks  and  the  gaunt  bodies  of  multitudes  of  children  attest  that  physical 
development  does  not  always  go  along  with  intellectual  and  moral. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  345 

TREASURES   IN   A  SHATTERED  CASKET. 

How  do  you  suppose  all  those  treasures  of  knowledge  wnich  a  child  gets  will 
look  in  shattered  caskets  ?  And  how  much  will  you  give  for  the  wealthiest  cargo 
-when  it  is  put  in  a  leaky  ship?  How  can  that  bright,  sharp  blade  of  a  child's 
attainments  be  wielded  without  any  handle?  What  are  brains  worth  without 
shoulders  to  carry  them  ?  What  is  a  child  with  magnificent  mind  but  an 
•exhausted  body  ?  Better  that  a  young  man  of  twenty-one  go  forth  in  the  world 
without  knowing  A  from  Z,  if  he  have  health  of  body  and  energy  to  push  his  way 
through  the  world,  than  at  twenty-one  to  enter  upon  active  life,  his  head  stuffed 
with  Socrates,  and  Herodotus,  and  Bacon,  and  I^a  Place,  but  no  physical  force  to 
sustain  him  in  the  shock  of  earthly  conflicts.  From  this  infinite  blunder  of  par- 
■ents  how  many  have  come  out  in  life  with  a  genius  that  could  have  piled  Ossa 
upon  Pelion  and  mounted  upon  them  to  scale  the  heavens,  and  have  laid  down 
panting  with  physical  exhaustion  before  a  mole-hill.  They  who  might  have 
thrilled  senates  and  marshaled  armies  and  startled  the  world  with  the  shock  of 
their  scientific  batteries,  have  passed  their  lives  in  picking  up  prescriptions  for 
indigestion.  They  owned  all  the  thunderbolts  of  Jupiter,  but  could  not  get  out 
of  their  rocking-chair  to  use  them.  George  Washington  in  early  life  was  a  poor 
speller,  and  spelled  hat  "  h-a-double-t, "  and  a  ream  of  paper  he  spelled  "  rheam," 
but  he  knew  enough  to  spell  out  the  independence  of  this  country  from  foreign 
oppression.  The  knowledge  of  the  schools  is  important,  but  there  are  other 
things  quite  as  important. 

Just  as  great  is  the  wrong  done  when  the  mind  is  cultivated  and  the  heart 
neglected.  The  youth  of  this  day  are  seldom  denied  any  scholarly  attainments. 
Our  schools  and  seminaries  are  ever  growing  in  efficiency,  and  the  students  are 
conducted  through  all  the  realms  of  philosophy,  and  art,  and  language,  and 
mathematics.  The  most  hereditary  obtuseness  gives  way  before  the  onslaught  of 
adroit  instructors. 

RELIGIOUS   RESTRAINT  ESSENTIAL. 

But  there  is  a  development  of  infinite  importance  which  mathematics  and  the 
■dead  languages  cannot  effect.  The  more  mental  power  the  more  capacity  for  evil, 
unless  coupled  with  religious  restraint.  You  discover  what  terrible  power  for  evil 
unsanctified  genius  possesses  when  you  see  Scaliger,  with  his  scathing  denuncia- 
tions, assaulting  the  best  men  of  his  time;  and  Blount,  and  Spinoza,  and  Bolingbroke 
leading  their  hosts  of  followers  into  the  all-consuming  fires  of  skepticism  and 
infidelity.  Whether  knowledge  is  a  mighty  good  or  an  unmitigated  evil  depends 
•entirely  upon  which  course  it  takes.  The  river  rolling  on  between  sound  banks 
makes  all  the  valley  laugh  with  golden  wheat  and  rank  grass,  and,  catching  hold 
the  wheel  of  mill  and   factory,  whirls  it  with   great   industries.     But,  breaking 


346  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

away  from  restraints  and  dashing  over  banks  in  red  wrath,  it  washes  away 
harvests  from  their  moorings  and  makes  the  valleys  shrink  with  the  catastrophe. 
Fire  in  the  furnace  heats  the  house  or  drives  the  steamer;  but,  uncontrolled,  ware- 
houses go  down  in  awful  crash  before  it,  and  in  a  few  hours  half  a  city  will  lie  in  black 
ruin,  walls,  and  towers,  and  churches,  and  monuments.  You  must  accompany  the 
education  of  the  intellect  with  the  education  of  the  heart,  or  you  are  rousing  up 
within  your  child  an  energy  which  will  be  blasting  and  terrific.  Better  a  wicked 
dunce  than  a  wicked  philosopher. 

The  fourth  error  often  committed  in  the  training  of  children  is  the  suppression 
of  childish  sportfulness.  The  most  triumphant  death  of  any  child  that  I  ever 
knew  was  that  of  Scoville  Haynes  McCollum.  A  few  days  before  that  he  was  at 
my  house  in  Sj^racuse,  and  he  ran  like  a  deer  and  his  halloo  made  the  woods  echo. 
You  could  hear  him  coming  a  block  off,  so  full  was  he  of  romp  and  laughter  and 
whistle.  Don't  put  religion  on  your  child  as  a  strait-jacket.  Parents,  after  having 
for  a  good  many  years  been  jostled  about  in  the  rough  world,  often  lose  their 
vivacity,  and  are  astonished  to  see  how  their  children  can  act  so  thoughtlessly  of 
the  earnest  world  all  about  them.  That  is  a  cruel  parent  who  quenches  any  of  the 
light  in  a  child's  soul.  Instead  of  arresting  its  sportfulness,  go  forth  and  help  him 
trundle  the  hoop,  and  fly  the  kite,  and  build  the  snow  castle.  Those  shoulders  are 
too  little  to  carry  a  burden,  that  brow  is  too  young  to  be  wrinkled,  those  feet  are 
too  sprightly  to  go  along  at  a  funeral  pace.     God  bless  their  young  hearts  ! 

LET  THE  CHILDREN    ROMP. 

Now  is  the  time  for  them  to  be  sportful.  Let  them  romp  and  sing  and  laugh, 
and  go  with  a  rush  and  a  hurrah.  In  this  way  they  gather  up  a  surplus  of  energy 
for  future  life.  For  the  child  that  walks  around  with  a  scowl,  dragging  his  feet  as 
though  they  were  weights  and  sitting  down  by  the  hour  in  moping  and  grumbling 
I  prophesy  a  life  of  utter  inanition  and  discontent.  Hush  the  robins  in  the  air  till 
they  become  silent  as  a  bat,  and  lecture  the  frisking  lambs  on  the  hillside  until 
they  walk  like  old  sheep,  rather  than  put  exhilarant  childhood  in  the  stocks.    ■ 

The  fifth  error  in  the  training  of  childhood  is  the  postponement  of  its  moral 
culture  until  too  late.  Multitudes  of  children  because  of  their  precocity  have  been 
urged  into  depths  of  study  where  they  ought  not  to  go,  and  their  intellects  have 
been  overburdened  and  overstrained  and  battered  to  pieces  against  Latin  grammars 
and  algebras,  and  coming  forth  into  practical  life  they  will  hardly  rise  to 
mediocrity;  and  there  is  now  a  stuffing  and  cramming  system  of  education  in  the 
schools  of  our  country  that  is  deathful  to  the  teachers  who  have  to  enforce  it,  and 
destructive  to  the  children  who  must  submit  to  the  process.  You  find  children  at 
nine  and  ten  years  of  age  with  school  lessons  only  appropriate  for  children  of 
fifteen.     If  children  are  kept  in  school  and  studying  from  nine  to  three  o'clock,  no 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 


347 


home  study  except  music  ought  to  be  required  of  them.  Six  hours  of  stud}-  is 
enough  for  any  child.  The  rest  of  the  day  ought  to  be  devoted  to  recreation  and 
pure  fun.  But  you  cannot  begin  too  early  the  moral  culture  of  a  child  or  on  too 
complete  a  scale.  You  can  look  back  upon  your  own  life  and  remember  what 
mighty  impressions  were  made  upon  you  at  five  or  six  ^-ears  of  age.  Oh,  that 
child  does  not  sit  so  silent  during  your  conversation  to  be  uninfluenced  by  it. 
You  say  he  does  not  understand.  Although  much  of  your  phraseology  is  beyond 
his  grasp,  he  is  gathering  up  from  your  talk  influences  which  will  affect  his 
immortal  destiny.  From  the  question  he  asks  3'ou  long  afterward  you  find  he 
understood  all  about  what  you  were 
saying.  You  think  the  child  does 
not  appreciate  that  beautiful  cloud, 
but  its  most  delicate  lines  are  re- 
flected into  the  very  depths  of  the 
youthful  nature,  and  a  score  of 
years  from  now  you  will  see  the 
shadow  of  that  cloud  in  the  tastes 
and  refinements  developed.  The 
song  with  which  you  sing  that  child 
to  sleep  will  echo  through  all  its 
life,  and  ring  back  from  the  very 
arches  of  heaven.  I  think  that 
often  the  first  seven  years  of  a 
child's  life  decide  whether  it  shall 
be  irascible,  waspish,  rude,  false, 
hypocritical,  or  gentle,  truthful, 
frank,  obedient,  honest  and  Chris- 
tian. 


THE    BEAUTY  OF  EARLY  PIETY.  ^ 

The  present  generations  of  men  "  °^^  ^^"^^^^  '''^^^"  ^^"^  '^  heaven." 

will  pass  off  very  much  as  they  are  now.  Although  the  gospel  is  offered  them, 
the  general  rule  is  that  drunkards  die  drunkards,  thieves  die  thieves,  libertines- 
die  libertines.  Therefore,  to  the  youth  w^e  turn.  Before  they  sow  wild  oats  get 
them  to  sow  wheat  and  barley.  You  fill  the  bushel  measure  with  good  corn  and 
there  will  be  no  room  for  husks.  Glorious  Alfred  Cooknian  was  converted  at 
ten  years  of  age.  At  Carlisle,  Pa.,  during  the  progress  of  a  religious  meeting  in 
a  Methodist  church,  while  many  were  kneeling  at  the  foot  of  the  altar,  this  boy 
knelt  in  a  corner  of  the  church,  all  by  himself,  and  said:  "Precious  Saviour, 
Thou  art  saving  others,  oh,  will  Thou  not  save  me?"     A  Presbyterian  elder  knelt 


348  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

beside  him  and  led  him  into  the  light.  Enthroned  Alfred  Cookman  !  Tell  me 
from  the  skies,  were  you  converted  too  early  ?  But  I  cannot  hear  his  answer.  It 
is  overpowered  by  the  huzzas  of  the  tens  of  thousands  who  were  brought  to  God 
through  his  ministry.  Isaac  Watts,  the  great  Christian  poet,  was  converted  at 
nine  years  of  age.  Robert  Hall,  the  great  Baptist  evangelist,  was  converted  at 
twelve  years  of  age.  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  greatest  of  American  logicians,  was 
converted  at  seven  years  of  age. 

Oh,  for  one  generation  of  holy  men  and  women.  Shall  it  be  the  next? 
Fathers  and  mothers,  you,  under  God,  are  to  decide  whether  from  your  families 
shall  go  forth  cowards,  inebriates,  counterfeiters,  blasphemers,  and  whether  there 
shall  be  those  bearing  your  image  and  carrying  your  name  festering  in  the  low 
haunts  of  vice,  and  floundering  in  dissipation,  and  making  the  midnight  of  their 
lives  horrid  with  a  long  howl  of  ruin,  or  whether  from  your  family  altars  shall 
come  the  Christian,  the  reformers,  the  teachers,  the  ministers  of  Christ,  the  com- 
forters of  the  troubled,  the  healers  of  the  sick,  the  enacters  of  good  laws,  the 
founders  of  charitable  institutions,  and  a  great  many  who  shall  in  the  humbler 
spheres  of  toil  and  usefulness  serve  God  and  the  best  interests  of  the  human 
race. 

You  cannot  as  parents  shirk  the  responsibility.  God  has  charged  you  with  a 
mission,  and  all  the  thrones  of  heaven  are  waiting  to  see  whether  you  will  do  j^our 
duty.  We  must  not  forget  that  it  is  not  so  much  what  we  teach  our  children,  as 
what  we  are  in  their  presence.  We  wish  them  to  be  better  than  we  are,  but  the 
probability  is  that  they  will  only  be  reproductions  of  our  own  character.  German 
literature  has  much  to  say  of  the  ' '  Spectre  of  Brocken. ' '  Among  those  mountains 
travelers  in  certain  conditions  of  the  atmosphere  see  themselves  copied  on  a  gigantic 
scale  in  the  clouds.  At  first  the  travelers  do  not  realize  that  it  is  themselves  on  a 
larger  scale.  When  they  lift  a  hand  or  move  the  head  this  monster  spectre  does 
the  same,  and  with  such  enlargement  of  proportions  that  the  scene  is  most  exciting, 
and  thousands  have  gone  to  that  place  just  to  behold  the  spectre  of  Brocken.  The 
probability  is  that  some  of  our  faults  which  we  consider  small  and  insignificant,  if 
we  do  not  put  an  end  to  them,  will  be  copied  on  a  larger  scale  in  the  lives  of  our 
children,  and  perhaps  dilated  and  exaggerated  into  spectral  proportions.  You 
need  not  go  as  far  off  as  the  Brocken  to  see  that  process.  The  first  thing  in  impor- 
tance in  the  education  of  our  children  is  to  make  ourselves,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
fit  examples  to  be  copied.  The  day  will  come  when  you  must  confront  that  child, 
not  in  the  church  pew  on  a  calm  Sabbath,  but  amid  the  consternation  of  the  rising 
dead,  and  the  flying  heavens  and  a  burning  world.  From  your  side  that  son  or 
daughter,  bone  of  your  bone,  heart  of  your  heart,  the  father's  brow  his  brow,  the 
mother's  eye  his  eye,  shall  go  forth  to  an  eternal  destiny.  What  will  be  your  joy 
if  at  last  you  hear  their  feet  in  the  same  golden  highway,  and  hear  their  voices  in 


i  iiilliiiSll'liiliii'"'™!'" 


ill  I    II 


7M 

J/x't 


"our  father  who  art  in  heaven." 


(349) 


350 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


the  same  rapturous  song,  illustrations,  while  the  eternal  ages  last,  of  what  a  faith- 
ful parent  could,  under  God,  accomplish  ! 

THE  DYING   MOTHER'S  REQUEST. 

I  was  reading  of  a  mother  who,  dying,  had  all  her  children  about  her,  and 
took  each  one  of  them  by  the  hand  and  asked  them  to  meet  her  in  heaven,  and 
with  tears  and  sobs,  such  as  those  only  know  who  have  stood  by  the  death-bed  of 
a  good  old  mother,  they  all  promised.  But  there  was  a  young  man  of  nineteen  who 
had  been  very  wild  and  reckless,  and  hard,  and  proud,  and  when  she  took  his 
hand,  she  said:  ' '  Now,  my  boy,  I  want  you  to  promise  me  before  I  die  that  you  will 
become  a  Christian  and  meet  me  in  heaven."  The  young  man  made  no  answer, 
for  there  was  so  much  for  him  to  give  up  if  he  made  and  kept  such  a  promise. 
But  the  aged  mother  persisted  in  saying:  "You  won't  deny  me  that  before  I 
go,  will  you  ?  This  parting  must  not  be  forever.  Tell  me  now  you  will  serve 
God  and  meet  me  in  the  land  where  there  is  no  parting. "  Quaking  with  emotion, 
he  stood  making  up  his  mind,  and  halting,  and  hesitating,  but  at  last  his  stubborn- 
ness yielded,  and  he  threw  his  arms  around  his  mother's  neck  and  said:  "Yes, 
mother;  I  will,  I  will."  And  as  he  finished  the  last  word  of  his  promise  her  spirit 
ascended.  I  thank  God  the  young  man  kept  his  promise.  Yes,  he  kept  it.  May 
-God  give  all  mothers  and  fathers  the  gladness  of  their  children's  salvation. 


\TQ:^iX^^ 


A  DESCRIPTION   OF  CHRIST'S  SACRIFICES  AND  THE  MARVELOUS 
MAGNIFICENCE   OF  HEAVEN. 

'T  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  all  the  worlds  which  on  a  cold  winter's 
night  make  the  heavens  one  great  glitter  are  inhabitantless.  Philoso- 
phers tell  us  that  many  of  these  worlds  are  too  hot,  or  too  cold,  or 
too  rarefied  of  atmosphere  for  residence.  But  if  not  fit  for  human 
abode,  they  may  be  fit  for  beings  different  from  and  superior  to  our- 
selves. We  are  told  that  the  world  of  Jupiter  is  changing  until  it 
is  almost  fit  for  creatures  like  the  human  race,  and  that  Mars  would 
do  for  the  human  family,  with  a  little  change  in  the  structure  of  the 
respiratory  organs.  But  that  there  is  a  great  world  swung  some- 
where, vast  beyond  imagination,  and  that  it  is  the  headquarters  of 
the  universe,  and  the  metropolis  of  immensity,  and  has  a  popula- 
tion in  numbers  vast  beyond  all  statistics,  and  appointments  of 
splendor  beyond  the  capacity  of  canvas,  or  poem,  or  angel  to 
describe,  is  as  certain  as  the  Bible  is  authentic.  Perhaps  some  of 
the  astronomers  with  their  big  telescopes  have  already  caught  a  glimpse  of  it,  not 
knowing  what  it  is.     We  spell  it  with  six  letters,  and  pronounce  it — Heaven. 

A  GLIMPSE  OF  HEAVEN. 

That  is  where  Prince  Jesus  lived  nineteen  centuries  ago.  He  was  the  King's 
son.  It  was  the  old  homestead  of  eternity,  and  all  its  castles  were  as  old  as  God. 
Not  a  frost  had  ever  chilled  the  air.  Not  a  tear  had  ever  rolled  down  the  cheek 
of  one  of  its  inhabitants.  There  had  never  been  in  it  a  headache,  or  a  sideache, 
or  a  heartache.  There  had  not  been  a  funeral  in  the  memory  of  the  oldest  inhabi- 
tant. There  had  never  in  all  the  land  been  woven  a  black  veil,  for  there  had  never 
been  anything  to  mourn  over.  The  passage  of  millions  of  years  had  not  wrinkled 
or  crippled  or  bedimmed  any  of  its  citizens.  All  the  people  theie  were  in  a  state 
of  eternal  adolescence.  What  floral  and  pomonic  richness  !  Gardens  of  perpetual 
bloom  and  orchards  in  unending  fruitage.  Had  some  spirit  from  another  world 
entered  and  asked:  "What  is  sin?  What  is  bereavement?  What  is  sorrow? 
What  is  death  ?' '  the  brightest  of  the  intelligences  would  have  failed  to  give  defini- 
tion, though  to  study  the  question  there  were  silence  in  heaven  for  half  an  hour. 

(351) 


352 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I^IFE. 


The  Prince  of  whom  I  spoke  had  honors,  emoluments,  acclamations,  such  as  no 
other  prince,  celestial  or  terrestrial,  ever  enjoyed.  As  He  passed  the  street,  the 
inhabitants  took  off  from  their  brows  garlands  of  white  lilies  and  threw  them  in 
the  way.  He  never  entered  any  of  the  temples  without  all  the  worshipers  rising- 
up  and  bowing  in  obeisance.  In  all  the  processions  of  the  high  days  He  was  the 
one  who  evoked  the  loudest  welcome.  Sometimes  on  foot,  walking  in  loving  talk 
with  the  humblest  of  the  land,  but  at  other  times  He  took  chariot,  and  among  the 
20,000  that  David  spoke  of  His  was  the  swiftest  and  most  flaming;  or,  as  wiien 
John   described   Him,  He  took  white  palfrey,  with  what  prance  of  foot,' and  arch 


Tower  of  i^ondon. 
of  neck,  and  roll  of  mane,  and  gleam  of  eye,  is  only  dimly  suggested  in  the  Apoca- 
lypse. He  was  not  like  other  princes,  waiting  for  the  Father  to  die  and  then  take 
the  throne.  When,  a  few  years  ago,  an  artist  in  Germany  made  a  picture  for  the 
Royal  Gallery,  representing  Emperor  William  on  the  throne  and  the  Crown  Prince 
as  having  one  foot  on  the  step  of  the  throne,  Emperor  William  ordered  the  picture 
changed,  and  said:   "  lyct  the  Prince  keep  his  foot  off  the  throne  till  I  leave  it." 

THE   WEALTH    OF   THE    PRINCE. 

Already  throned  was  the  Heavenly  Prince  side  by  side  with  the  Father.    What 
a  circle  of  dominion  !     What  myriads  of  admirers  !     What  unending  round  of 


(35^) 


354  I'HE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

glories  !     All  the  towers  chimed  the  Prince's  praises.     Of  all  the  inhabitants,  from 

the  centre  of  the  city  on  over  the  hills  and  clear  down  to  the  beach  against  which 

the  ocean  of  immensity  rolls  its  billows,  the  Prince  was  the  acknowledged  favorite. 

No  wonder  Paul  says  that  "  He  was  rich." 

Set  all  the  diamonds  of  the  earth  in  one  sceptre,  build  all  the  palaces  of  the 

earth  in  one  Alhambra,  gather  all  the  pearls  of  the  sea  in  one  diadem,  put  all  the 

values  of  the  earth  in  one  coin,  the   aggregate  would  not   express  His  affluence. 

Yes,  Paul  was  right.     Solomon  had  in  gold  $3,400,000,000,  and  in  silver  $5,145,- 

001,885.      But  a  greater  than  Solomon  is  here.     Not  the  millionaire,  but  the  quad- 

rillionaire  of  heaven.     To  describe  His  celestial  surroundings  the  Bible  uses  all 

colors,  gathering  them  in  rainbow  over  the  throne  and  setting  them  as  agate  in  the 

temple  window,  and  hoisting  twelve  of  them  into  a  wall  from  striped  jasper  at  the 

base  to  transparent  amethyst  in  the  capstone,  while  between  are  green  of  emerald, 

and  snow  of  pearl,  and  blue  of  sapphire,  and  yellow  of  topaz,  and  gray  of  chrj-so- 

prasus,  and  flame  of  jacinth.     All  the  loveliness  of  landscape  in  foliage,  and  river 

and  rill,  and  all  enchantment  aqua-marine,  the  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire  as 

the  sun   sinks  in   the  Mediterranean.     All  the  thrill  of  music,  instrumental,  and 

vocal,  harps,  trumpet,  doxologies.     There  stood  the  Prince,  surrounded  by  those 

who  had  under  their  wings  the  velocity  of  millions  of  miles  in  a  second,  rich  in 

love,  rich  in  adoration,  rich  in  power,  rich    in  worship,  rich  in  holiness,  rich  as 

God. 

A    FALLEN    WORLD. 

But  one  day  there  was  a  big  disaster  in  a  department  of  God's  universe.  A 
race  fallen  !  A  world  in  ruins  !  Our  planet  the  scene  of  catastrophe  !  A  globe 
swinging  out  into  darkness,  with  mountains,  and  seas,  and  islands,  an  awful  cen- 
trifugal of  sin  seeming  to  overpower  the  beautiful  centripetal  of  righteousness,  and 
from  it  a  groan  reached  heaven.  Such  a  sound  had  never  been  heard  there. 
Plenty  of  sweet  sounds,  but  never  an  outcry  of  distress,  or  an  echo  of  agony.  At 
that  one  groan  the  Prince  rose  from  all  the  blissful  circumjacence,  and  started  for 
the  outer  gate,  and  descended  into  the  night  of  this  world.  Out  of  what  a  bright 
harbor  into  what  rough  sea  ! 

"  Stay  with  us,"  cried  angel  after  angel,  and  potentate  after  potentate. 

"  No,"  said  the  Prince;  "  I  cannot  stay;  I  must  be  off  for  that  wreck  of  a 
-world.  I  must  stop  that  groan.  I  must  hush  that  distress.  I  must  fathom  that 
^woe.  I  must  redeem  those  nations.  Farewell,  thrones  and  temples,  companions 
<:herubic,  seraphic,  archangelic  !  Excuse  this  absence,  for  I  will  come  back  again, 
•carrying  on  My  shoulder  a  ransomed  world.  Till  this  is  done  I  choose  earthly 
;scoff  to  heavenly  acclamation,  and  a  cattle-pen  to  a  king's  palace,  frigid  zone  of 
•earth  to  atmosphere  of  celestial  radiance.  I  have  no  time  to  lose,  for  hark  ye  to 
the  groan  that  grows  mightier*  while  I  wait.     Farewell !     Farewell ! 


m^i 


I       - 


lllliniii!iiii|j^||||iiiii|||!ii|^[||[iii|iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii|:iil||^^^ 

THE   ANCHOR   OF   THE  SOUI,. 


(355^ 


356  THK  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

CHRIST'S   ARRIVAL    ON    EARTH. 

Was  there  ever  a  contrast  so  overpowering  as  that  between  the  noonday  of 
Christ's  celestial  departure  and  the  midnight  of  His  earthly  arrival  ?  Sure  enough, 
the  angels  were  out  that  night  in  the  sky,  and  especial  meteors  acted  as  escort, 
but  all  that  was  from  other  worlds  and  not  from  tliis  world.  The  earth  made  no 
demonstration  of  welcome.  If  one  of  the  great  princes  of  this  world  steps  out  at  a 
depot  cheers  resound,  and  the  bands  play,  and  the  flags  wave.  But  for  the  arrival 
of  this  missionary  Prince  of  tlie  skies  not  a  torch  flared,  not  a  trumpet  blew,  not  a 
plume  fluttered.  All  the  music  and  the  pomp  were  overhead.  Our  world  opened 
Jor  Him  nothing  better  than  a  barn  door.  The  Rajah  of  Cashmere  sent  to  Victoria  a 
bedstead  of  carved  gold  and  a  canopy  that  cost  $750,000,  but  the  world  had  for  the 
Prince  of  heaven  and  earth  only  a  litter  of  straw.  The  Crown  jewels  in  the 
Tower  of  London  amount  to  $15,000,000,  but  this  member  of  eternal  royalty  had 
nowhere  to  lay  His  head.  To  know  how  poor  He  was,  ask  the  camel  drivers,  ask 
the  shepherds,  ask  Mary,  ask  the  three  wise  men  of  the  East  who  afterward  came 
there,  young  Caspar,  middle-aged  Balthaser  and  old  Melchior.  To  know  how 
poor  He  was,  examine  all  the  records  of  real  estate  in  all  that  Oriental  country  and 
see  what  vineyard,  or  what  house,  or  what  field  He  owned.  Not  one.  Of  what 
mortgage  was  He  the  mortgagee  ?  Of  what  tenement  was  He  the  landlord  ?  Of 
what  lease  was  He  the  lessee  ?  Who  ever  paid  him  rent  ?  Not  owning  the  boat 
on  which  He  sailed,  or  the  beast  on  which  He  rode,  or  the  pillow  on  w^hich  He 
slept.  He  had  so  little  estate  that  in  order  to  pay  His  tax  He  had  to  perform 
a  miracle,  putting  the  amount  of  the  assessment  in  a  fish's  mouth  and  having  it 
hauled  ashore.  And  after  His  death  the  world  rushed  in  to  take  an  inventory  of 
His  goods,  and  the  entire  aggregate  was  the  garments  He  had  worn,  sleeping  in 
them  by  night  and  traveling  in  them  by  day,  bearing  on  them  the  dust  of  the 
highway  and-the  saturation  of  the  sea.  Paul  did  not  go  far  from  hitting  the  mark 
when  He  said  of  the  missionary  Prince:    "  For  j^our  sakes  He  became  poor  !" 

A   CHILLING     RECEPTION. 

The  world  could  have  treated  Him  better  if  it  had  chosen.  It  had  all  the 
means  for  making  His  earthly  condition  comfortable.  Only  a  few  years  before, 
when  Porapey,  the  General,  returned  in  triumph,  he  was  greeted  with  arches  and 
a  costly  column  which  celebrated  the  12,000,000  people  whom  he  had  killed  or 
conquered,  and  he  was  allowed  to  wear  his  triumphal  robe  in  the  Senate.  The 
world  had  applause  for  imperial  butchers,  but  buffeting  for  the  Prince  of  Peace; 
plenty  of  golden  chalices  for  the  favored  to  drink  out  of,  but  our  Prince  must  put 
His  lips  to  the  bucket  of  the  well  by  the  roadside  after  he  had  begged  for  a  drink. 
Poor  ?  Born  in  another  man's  barn  and  eating  at  another  man's  table,  and  cruis- 
ing  the  lake   in    another   man's   fishing-smack,   and   buried    in   another   man's 


MATERNAI,  JOY. 


(357) 


358  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

mausoleum.  Four  inspired  authors  wrote  His  biography,  and  innumerable  lives 
of  Christ  have  been  published,  but  He  composed  His  autobiography  in  the  most 
compressed  way.     He  said:   "  I  have  trodden  the  wine-press  alone. " 

Poor  in  the  estimation  of  nearly  all  the  prosperous  classes.  They  called  Him 
Sabbath-breaker,  wine-bibber,  traitor,  blasphemer,  and  ransacked  the  dictionary  of 
opprobrium  from  lid  to  lid  to  express  their  detestation.  I  can  think  now  of  only 
two  well-to-do  men  who  espoused  His  cause,  Nicodemus  and  Joseph,  of  Arimathea. 
His  friends  for  the  most  part  were  people  who,  in  that  climate  where  ophthalmy 
or  inflammation  of  the  eyeball  sweeps  ever  and  anon  as  a  scourge,  had  become 
blind,  sick  people  who  were  anxious  to  get  well,  and  troubled  people  in  whose 
family  there  was  some  one  dead  or  dying.  If  He  had  a  purse  at  all  it  was  empty, 
or  we  would  have  heard  what  was  done  with  the  contents  at  the  post-mortem. 
Poor?  The  pigeon  in  the  dove-cote,  the  rabbit  in  its  burrow,  the  silk- worm  in  its 
cocoon,  the  bee  in  its  hive  is  better  provided  for,  better  off,  better  sheltered.  Ay, 
the  brute  creation  has  a  home  on  earth,  which  Christ  had  not. 

But  the  Crown  Prince  of  all  heavenly  dominion  has  less  than  the  raven,  less 
than  the  chamois,  for  He  was  homeless.  Ay,  in  the  history  of  the  universe  there 
is  no  other  instance  of  such  coming  down.  Who  can  count  the  miles  from  the  top 
of  the  throne  to  the  bottom  of  the  cross  ?  Cleopatra  giving  a  banquet  to  Antony, 
took  a  pearl  worth  $100,000  and  dissolved  it  in  vinegar  and  swallowed  it.  But 
when  our  Prince,  according  to  the  evangelist,  in  His  last  hours  took  the  vinegar, 
in  it  had  been  dissolved  all  the  pearls, of  His  heavenly  royalty.  Down  until  there 
was  no  other  depth  for  Him  to  touch,  troubled  until  there  was  no  other  harass- 
ment to  suffer,  poor  until  there  was  no  other  pauperism  to  torture.  Billions  of 
dollars  spent  in  wars  to  destroy  men,  who  will  furnish  the  statistics  of  the  value  of 
that  precious  blood  that  was  shed  to  save  us  ? 

THE   GRACE   OF    GOD. 

One  of  John  Bunyan's  great  books  is  entitled  "  Grace  Abounding."  "  It  is  all 
of  grace  that  I  am  saved  "  has  been  on  the  lips  of  hundreds  of  dying  Christians. 
The  boy  Sammy  was  right  when,  being  examined  for  admission  into  Church 
membership,  he  was  asked:  "  Whose  work  was  your  salvation  ?"  and  he  answered: 
**  Part  mine  and  part  God's."  Then  the  examiner  asked:  "What  part  did  you 
do,  Sammy  ?"  and  the  answer  was:  "  I  opposed  God  all  I  could,  and  He  did  the 
rest."  Oh  !  the  height  of  it,  the  depth  of  it,  the  length  of  it,  the  breadth  of  it — 
the  grace  of  God  ! 

Mr.  Fletcher  having  written  a  pamphlet  that  pleased  the  king,  the  king  offered 
to  compensate  him,  and  Fletcher  answered:  "  There  is  only  one  thing  I  want,  and 
that  is  more  grace. ' ' 

Yes,  blood-bought  readers,  grace  to  live  by  and  grace  to  die  by.     Grace  that 


PAUL  BEING  TAKEN  AWAY  FROM  PRISON  TO  ROME.— i^w^w  a  Painting  by  Bonn 

(359) 


36o  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

saved  the  publican,  that  saved  Lydia,  that  saved  the  dying  thief,  that  saved  the 
jailer,  that  saved  me.  But  the  riches  of  that  grace  will  not  be  fully  understood 
until  heaven  breaks  in  upon  the  soul.  An  old  Scotchman  who  had  been  a  soldier 
in  one  of  the  European  wars,  was  sick  and  dying  in  one  of  our  American  hospitals. 
His  one  desire  was  to  see  Scotland  and  his  old  home,  and  once  again  walk  the 
heather  of  the  highlands  and  hear  the  bagpipes  of  the  Scotch  regiments.  The 
iii^dit  that  the  old  Scotch  soldier  died,  a  young  man,  somewhat  reckless  but  kind- 
hearted,  got  a  company  of  musicians  to  come  and  play  under  the  old  soldier's 
window,  and  among  thi  instruments  was  a  bagpipe.  The  instant  that  the 
musicians  began,  the  dying  old  man,  in  delirium,  said: 

"  What's  that,  what's  that?  Why,  it's  the  regiments  coming  home.  That's  the 
tune;  yes,  that's  the  tune.     Thank  God,  I  have  got  home  once  more  !" 

' '  Bonny  Scotland  and  Bonny  Doon  ' '  were  the  last  words  he  uttered  as  he 
passed  up  to  the  highlands  of  the  better  countr}-. 

When  Artaxerxes  was  hunting,  Tirebazus,  who  was  attending  him,  showed 
the  king  a  rent  in  his  garment.  The  king  said:  "  How  shall  I  mend  it  ?"  "  By 
giving  it  to  me,"  said  Tirebazus.  Then  the  king  gave  him  the  robe,  but  com- 
manded him  never  to  wear  it,  as  it  would  be  inappropriate. 

See  the  startling  and  comforting  fact  !  While  our  Prince  throws  off  the  habit, 
He  not  only  allows  us  to  wear  it,  but  commands  us  to  wear  it,  and  it  will  become 
us  well,  and  for  the  poverties  of  our  spiritual  state  we  may  put  on  the  splendors 
of  heavenly  regalement.  For  our  sakes  !  Oh  the  personality  of  this  religion  ! 
Not  an  abstraction,  not  an  arch  under  which  we  walk  to  behold  elaborate  masonry, 
not  an  ice  castle  like  that  which  Empress  Elizabeth,  of  Russia,  over  a  hundred 
years  ago  ordered  constructed,  winter  with  its  trowel  of  crystal  cementing  the  huge 
blocks  that  had  been  quarried  from  the  frozen  rivers  of  the  North;  but  a  father's 
house,  with  a  wide  hearth  crackling  a  hearty  welcome.  A  religion  of  warmth  and 
inspiration,  and  light  and  cheer;  something  we  can  take  into  our  hearts,  and 
homes,  and  business  recreation,  and  joys  and  sorrows.  Not  an  unmanageable 
gift,  like  the  galley  presented  to  Ptolemy,  which  required  4000  men  to  row,  and  its 
draught  of  water  was  so  great  that  it  could  not  come  near  the  shore,  but  something 
you  can  run  up  any  stream  of  annoyance,  however  shallow.  Enrichment  now, 
enrichment  forever. 

The  seven  wise  men  of  Greece  were  chief! 3'  known  each  for  one  apothegm: 
Solon  for  the  saying,  "  Know  thyself;  "  Periander  for  the  saying,  "  Nothing  is 
impossible  to  industry;  "  Chilo  for  the  saying,  "  Consider  the  end;  "  Thales  for 
the  saying,  "  vSuretyship  is  the  precursor  of  ruin."  And  Paul,  distinguished  for 
a  thousand  utterances,  might  well  afford  to  be  memorable  for  the  saying:  "  Ye 
know  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  though  He  was  rich,  yet  for  your 
sakes  He  became  poor,  that  ye  through  His  poverty-  might  be  rich." 


®oncorr^    ntXiX    ^x^jccuci^* 


FOUNDING  OF  THE  WORLD  TO  THE  MUSIC  OF  THE 
SPHERES. 


Y  readers  have  all  seen  the  ceremony  at  the  laying  of  the 
corner-stone  of    church,   asylum  or   Masonic   temple. 
Into  the  hollow  of  the  stone  were  placed  scrolls  of  his- 
tory and  important  documents,  to  be  suggestive  if,  one 
or  two  hundred   years  after,   the   building   should  be 
destroyed  by  fire  or  torn  down.       We  remember  the 
silver  trowel  or  iron  hammer   that  smote  the  square 
piece  of  granite  into  sanctity.     We  remember  some  venerable  man 
who  presided,  wielding  the  trowel  or  hammer.      We  remember 
also  the  music,  as  the  choir  stood  on  the  scattered  stones  and  tim- 
ber of  the  building  about   to  be  constructed.     The  leaves  of  the 
note-books  fluttered  in  the  wind,  and  were  turned  over  with  a  great 
rustling,  and  we  remember  how  the  bass,  barytone,   tenor,  con- 
tralto and  soprano  voices  commingled.      They  had  for  many  days 
been  rehearsing  the  special  programme  that  it  might  be  worthy 
of  the  corner-stone  laying. 

Job,  the  poet  of  Uz,  reminds  us  of  a  grander  ceremony  than 
an)'  mortal  eyes  have  ever  witnessed  when  he  asks:  "  Who  laid  the  corner-stone 
thereof  when  the  morning  stars  sang  together  ?  ' ' — the  laying  of  the  foundation  of 
this  great  temple  of  a  world.  The  corner-stone  was  a  block  of  light  and  the 
trowel  was  of  celestial  crystal.  All  about  and  on  the  embankments  of  cloud  stood 
the  angelic  choristers,  unrolling  their  librettos  of  overture,  and  other  worlds  clapped 
shining  cymbals  while  the  ceremony  went  on,  and  God,  the  architect,  by  stroke 
of  light  after  stroke  of  light,  dedicated  this  great  cathedral  of  a  world,  with  moun- 
tains for  pillars,  and  sky  for  frescoed  ceiling,  and  flowering  fields  for  floor,  and 
sunrise  and  midnight  aurora  for  upholstery. 

A  MUSICAL   PORTFOLIO. 

The  fact  is  that  the  whole  universe  was  a  complete  cadence,  an  unbroken 
dithyramb,  a  musical  portfolio.  The  great  sheet  of  immensity  had  been  spread 
out,  and  written  on  it  were  the  stars,  the  smaller  of  them  minims,  the  larger  of 
them  sustained  notes.      The  meteors  marked  the  staccato  passages,  the  whole 

(361) 


362 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


heavens  a  gamut,  with  all  sounds,  intonations  and  modulations,  the  space  between 
the  worlds  a  musical  interval,  trembling  of  stellar  light,  a  quaver,  the  thunder  a 
bass  clef,  the  wind  among  the  trees  a  treble  clef.  That  is  the  way  God  made  all 
things  in  perfect  harmony. 

But  one  day  a  harp-string  snapped  in  the  great  orchestra.  One  day  a  voice 
sounded  out  of  tune.  One  day  a  discord,  harsh  and  terrific,  grated  upon  the 
glorious  antiphone.  It  was  sin  that  made  the  dissonance,  and  that  harsh  discord 
has  been  sounding  through  the  centuries.  All  the  work  of  Christians  and  philan- 
thropists and  reformers  of  all  ages  is  to  stop  that  discord,  and  get  all  things  back 
into  the  perfect  harmony  which  was  heard  at  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone,  when 

the  morning  stars  sang  together. 
I  hope  here  to  show  you  that  sin 
is  discord  and  righteousness  is 
harmony. 

That  things  in  general  are 
out  of  tune  is  as  plain  as  to  a 
musician's  ear  is  the  unhappy 
clash  of  clarionet  and  bassoon  in 
an  orchestral  rendering. 

The  world's  health  out  of 
tune:  Weak  lung  and  the  at- 
mosphere in  collision,  disordered 
eye  and  noonday  light  in  quar- 
rel, rheumatic  limb  and  damp 
THE  MORNING  OF  THE  woRi,D.  wcatlicr  iu  Struggle,   neuralgias, 

and  pneumonias,  and  consumptions,  and  epilepsies  in  flocks  swoop  upon  neigh- 
borhoods and  cities.  Where  you  find  one  person  with  sound  throat,  and  keen 
eyesight,  and  alert  ear,  and  easy  respiration,  and  regular  pulsation,  and  supple 
Hmb,  and  prime  digestion,  and  steady  nerves,  you  find  a  hundred  who  have  to 
be  very  careful  because  this,  or  that,  or  the  other  ph^'sical  function  is  disordered. 
The  human  intellect  out  of  tune:  The  judgment  wrongly  swerv^ed,  or  the 
memory  leaky,  or  the  will  weak,  or  the  temper  inflammable,  and  the  well-balanced 
mind  exceptional.  Domestic  life  out  of  tune:  Only  here  and  there  a  conjugal 
outbreak  of  incompatibility  of  temper  through  the  divorce  courts,  or  a  filial  out- 
break about  a  father's  will  through  the  surrogate's  court,  or  a  case  of  wife-beating 
or  husband-poisoning  through  the  criminal  gourts,  but  thousands  of  families  with 
June  outside  and  January  within. 

Society  out  of  tune:  Labor  and  capital,  their  hands  on  each  other's  throat. 
Spirit  of  caste  keeping  those  down  in  the  social  scale  in  a  struggle  to  get  up,  and 
putting  those  who  are  up  in  anxiety  lest  they  have  to  come  down.     No  wonder 


WTTLE   sister's    EVII.   HOUR. 


(363) 


-364  THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 

ithe  old  piano-forte  of  society  is  all  out  of  tune,  when  hypocrisy,  and  lying, 
and  subterfuge,  and  double-dealing,  and  sycophancy,  and  charlatanism  and 
•revenge  have  for  six  thousand  years  been  banging  away  at  the  keys  and  stamping 
the  pedals. 

On  all  sides  there  is  a  perpetual  shipwreck  of  harmonies.  Nations  in  discord. 
Without  realizing  it,  so  wrong  is  the  feeling  of  nation  for  nation  that  the  symbols 
chosen  are  fierce  and  destructive.  In  this  country,  where  our  skies  are  full  of 
robins,  and  doves,  and  morning  larks,  we  have  our  national  symbol,  the  fierce  and 
filthy  eagle,  as  immoral  a  bird  as  can  be  found  in  all  the  ornithological  catalogues. 
In  Great  Britain,  where  they  have  lambs  and  fallow-deer,  their  symbol  is  the 
merciless  lion.  In  Russia,  where,  from  between  her  frozen  north  and  blooming 
■south,  all  kindly  beasts  dwell,  they  choose  the  growling  bear,  and  in  the  world's 
heraldry  a  favorite  figure  is  the  dragon,  which  is  a  winged  serpent,  ferocious  and 
•deathful. 

FOND  OF  CONTENTION. 

And  so  fond  is  the  world  of  contention  that  we  climb  out  through  the  heavens 
.and  baptize  one  of  the  other  planets  with  the  spirit  of  battle  and  call  it  Mars  after 
the  god  of  war,  and  we  give  to  the  eighth  sign  of  the  zodiac  the  name  of  the 
scorpion,  a  creature  which  is  chiefly  celebrated  for  its  deadly  sting.  But,  after  all, 
these  symbols  are  expressive  of  the  way  nation  feels  toward  nation.  Discord  wide 
as  the  continent  and  bridging  the  seas.  I  suppose  you  have  noticed  how  warmly 
in  love  dry  goods  stores  are  with  other  dry  goods  stores,  and  how  highly  grocery- 
men  think  of  the  sugars  of  the  grocery  men  on  the  same  block.  And  in  what  a 
■eulogistic  way  allopathic  and  homoeopathic  doctors  speak  of  each  other,  and  how 
many  ministers  will  sometimes  put  ministers  on  their  beautiful  cooking  instrument 
which  the  English  call  a  spit,  an  iron  roller  with  spikes  on  it  and  turned  by  a 
crank  before  a  hot  fire,  and  then  if  the  minister  being  roasted  cries  out  against  it, 
the  men  who  are  turning  him  say:  "  Hush,  brother  !  we  are  turning  this  spit  for 
the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  your  soul,  and  you  must  be  quiet  while  v/e 
•close  the  service  with: 

Blest  be  the  tie  that  binds 
Our  hearts  in  Christian  love." 

The  earth  is  diametered  and  circumferenced  with  discord,  and  the  music  that 
was  rendered  at  the  laying  of  the  world's  corner-stone,  when  the  morning  stars 
sang  together,  is  not  heard  now;  and  though  here  and  there,  from  this  and  that 
part  of  society,  and  from  this  and  that  part  of  the  earth,  there  comes  up  a  thrilling 
solo  of  love,  or  a  warble  of  worship,  or  a  sweet  duet  of  patience,  they  are  drowned 
•out  bv  a  discord  that  shakes  the  earth. 


THK  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


365- 


Paul  says:  ' '  The  whole  creation  groaneth."  And  while  the  nightingale,  and 
the  woodlark,  and  the  canary,  and  the  plover  sometimes  sing  so  sweetly  that  their 
notes  have  been  written  out  in  musical  notation,  and  it  is  found  that  the  cuckoo- 
sings  in  the  kej^  of  D,  and  that  the  cormorant  is  a  basso  in  the  winged  choir,  yet 


THE   BOAT  SONG. 

sportsman's  gun  and  the  autumnal  blast  often  leave  them  ruffled  and  bleeding,  or 
dead  in  meadow  or  forest.  Paul  was  right,  for  the  groan  in  nature  drowns  out 
the  prime  donne  of  the  sky. 

THE  DEVIL'S  SONATA. 

Tartini,  the  great  musical  composer,  dreamed  one  night  that  he  made  a 
contract  with  Satan,  the  latter  to  be  ever  in  the  composer's  service.  But  one  night 
he  handed  to  Satan  a  violin,  on  which  Diabolus  played  such  sweet  music  that  the 
composer  was  awakened  by  the  emotion  and  tried  to  reproduce  the  sounds,  and 


366  THK  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

therefrom  was  written  Tartini's  most  famous  piece,  entitled  the  "  Devil's  Sonata," 
a  dream  ingenious  but  faulty,  for  all  melody  descends  from  heaven,  and  only 
discords  ascend  from  hell.  All  hatreds,  feuds,  controversies,  back-bitings  and 
revenges  are  the  devil's  sonata,  are  diabolic  fugue,  are  demoniac  phantasy,  are 
grand  march  of  doom,  are  allegro  of  perdition. 

But  if  in  this  world  things  in  general  are  out  of  tune  to  our  frail  ear,  how 
much  more  so  to  ears  angelic  and  divine.  It  takes  a  skilled  artist  fully  to  appre- 
ciate disagreement  of  sound.  Many  have  no  capacity  to  detect  a  defect  of  musical 
execution,  and,  though  there  were  in  one  bar  as  many  offences  against  harmony 
as  could  crowd  in  between  the  lower  F"  of  the  bass  and  the  higher  C  of  the 
soprano,  it  would  give  them  no  discomfort,  while  on  the  forehead  of  the  educated 
artist  beads  of  perspiration  would  stand  out  as  a  result  of  the  harrowing  disso- 
nance. While  an  amateur  w^as  performing  on  a  piano,  and  had  just  struck  the 
Avrong  chord,  John  Sebastian  Bach,  the  immortal  composer,  entered  the  room  and 
the  amateur  rose  in  embarrassment,  and  Bach  rushed  past  the  host,  who  stepped 
forward  to  greet  him,  and  before  the  keyboard  had  stopped  vibrating,  put  his 
adroit  hand  upon  the  kej^s  and  changed  the  painful  inharmony  into  glorious  _ 
•cadence.     Then  Bach  turned  and  gave  salutation  to  the  host  who  had  invited  him. 

MORAL  DISCORD. 

But  the  worst  of  all  discords  is  moral  discord.  If  society  and  the  world  are 
painfully  discordant  to  imperfect  man,  what  must  they  be  to  a  perfect  God  ? 
People  try  to  define  wdiat  sin  is.  It  seems  to  me  that  sin  is  getting  out  of  harmony 
with  God,  a  disagreement  with  His  holiness,  with  His  purity,  with  His  love,  with 
His  commands;  our  will  clashing  with  His  will,  the  finite  dashing  against  the 
Infinite,  the  frail  against  the  puissant,  the  created  against  the  Creator.  If  a 
thousand  musicians,  wdth  flute,  and  cornet-a-piston,  and  trumpet,  and  violoncello, 
and  hautboy,  and  trombone,  and  all  the  wind  and  stringed  instruments  that  e\-er 
gathered  in  a  Dusseldorf  jubilee,  should  resolve  that  they  would  pla}-  out  of  tune, 
and  put  concord  to  the  rack,  and  make  the  place  wild  with  shrieking,  and  grating, 
and  rasping  sounds,  they  could  not  make  such  a  pandemonium  as  that  which 
rages  in  a  sinful  soul  when  God  listens  to  the  play  of  its  thoughts,  passions  and 
emotions — discord,  lifelong  discord,  maddening  discord.  The  world  pays  more  for 
discord  than  it  does  for  consonance.  High  prices  have  been  paid  for  music.  One 
man  gave  $225  to  hear  the  Swedish  songstress  in  New  York,  and  another  $625  to 
hear  her  in  Boston,  and  another  $650  to  hear  her  in  Providence.  Fabulous  prices 
have  been  paid  for  sweet  sounds,  but  far  more  has  been  paid  for  discord.  The 
Crimean  War  cost  $1,700,000,000,  and  our  American  Civil  War  over  $9,500,- 
000,000,  and  the  war  debts  of  professed  Christian  nations  are  about  $15,000,000,000. 
The  world  pays  for  this  red  ticket,  which  admits  it  to  the  Saturnalia  of  broken 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE.  367 

bon  s,  and  death  agonies,  and  destroyed  cities,  and  plowed  graves,  and  crushed 
hcci.ts,  any  amount  of  money  Satan  asks.     Discord  !    Discord  ! 

OVERTURE  OF  THE  MORNING  STARS. 

But  I  have  to  tell  you  that  the  song  that  the  morning  stars  sang  together  at 
the  laying  of  the  world's  corner-stone  is  to  be  resumed  again.  Mozart's  greatest 
overture  was  composed  one  night  when  he  was  several  times  overpowered  with 
sleep,  and  artists  say  they  can  tell  the  places  in  the  music  where  he  was  falling 
asleep,  and  the  places  where  he  awakened.  So  the  overture  of  the  morning  stars, 
spoken  of  in  Job,  has  been  asleep,  but  it  will  awaken  and  be  more  grandly  rendered 
by  the  evening  stars  of  the  world's  existence  than  by  the  morning  stars,  and  the 
vespers  will  be  sweeter  than  the  matins.  The  work  of  all  good  men  and  women, 
and  of  all  good  churches,  and  all  reform  associations,  is  to  bring  the  race  back  to 
the  original  harmony.  The  rebellious  heart  to  be  attuned,  social  life  to  be 
attuned,  commercial  ethics  to  be  attuned,  internationalit}^  to  be  attuned,  hemi- 
spheres to  be  attuned.     But  by  what  force  and  in  what  way  ? 

In  olden  times  the  choristers  had  a  tuning-fork  with  two  prongs,  and  they 
would  strike  it  on  the  back  of  pew  or  music-rack  and  put  it  to  the  ear,  and  then 
start  the  tune,  and  all  the  other  voices  would  join.  In  modern  orchestra  the 
leader  has  a  complete  instrument  rightly  attuned,  and  he  sounds  that,  and  all  the 
other  performers  turn  the  keys  of  their  instruments  to  make  them  correspond,  and 
sound  the  bow  over  the  string,  and  listen,  and  sound  out  over  again  until  all  the 
keys  are  screwed  to  concert  pitch,  and  the  discords  melt  into  one  great  symphony, 
and  the  curtain  hoists,  and  the  baton  taps,  and  audiences  are  raptured  with  Schu- 
mann's "Paradise  and  the  Peri,"  or  Rossini's  "  Stabat  Mater,"  or  Bach's 
^'  Magnificat"  in  D,  or  Gounod's  "  Redemption." 

THE  INSTRUMENT  TO  ATTUNE  THE  WORLD. 

Now  our  world  can  never  be  attuned  by  an  imperfect  instrument.  Even  a 
Cremona  would  not  do.  Heaven  has  ordained  the  only  instrument,  and  it  is 
made  out  of  the  wood  of  the  cross,  and  the  voices  that  accompany  it  are  imported 
voices,  cantatrices  of  the  first  Christmas  night,  when  Heaven  serenaded  the  earth 
with:   "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  good  will  to  men." 

Many  men  have  thought  to  get  their  heart  heavenly  attuned  by  withdrawing 
from  the  world  and  living  like  Hieronymus,  with  a  lion  merely  to  remind  them 
of  a  power  dangerous  unless  controlled,  but  love  moves  us  more  mightily  than 
fear. 

lycst  we  start  too  far  off  and  get  lost  in  generalities,  we  had  better  begin  with 
ourselves — get  our  own  hearts  and  life  in  harmon}^  with  the  eternal  Christ.  Oh, 
for  His  almighty  spirit  to  attune  us,  to  chord  our  will  with  His  will,  to  modulate 


368 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


our  life  with  His  life,  and  bring  us  into  unison  with  all  that  is  pure  and  self^ 
sacrificing  and  heavenly.  The  strings  of  our  nature  are  all  broken  and  twisted, 
and  the  bow  is  so  slack  it  cannot  evoke  anything  mellifluous.  The  instrument 
made  for  Heaven  to  play  on  has  been  roughly  twanged  and  struck  by  influences 
worldly  and  demoniac.  O  master  hand  of  Christ,  restore  this  split,  and  fractured, 
and  despoiled,  and  unstrung  nature,  until  first  it  shall  wail  out  for  our  sin,  and 
then  thrill  with  divine  pardon. 

The  whole  world  must  also  be  attuned  by  the  same  power.     Some  time  ago 
I  was  in  the  Fairbanks  Weighing  Scale  Manufactory  of  Vermont.     Six  hundred 

hands,  and  they  have  never  had  a 
strike.  Complete  harmony  l^etween 
labor  and  capital,  the  operatives  of 
scores  of  years  in  their  beautiful  homes 
near  by  the  mansions  of  the  manu- 
facturers whose  invention  and  Chris- 
tian behavior  made  the  great  enter- 
pri.se.  So,  all  the  world  over,  labor  and 
capital  will  be  brought  into  euphony. 

THE  ANVIL  CHORUS. 

You  may  have  heard  what  is  called 
the  ' '  Anvil  Chorus, ' '  composed  by 
Verdi,  a  tune  plaj^ed  by  hammers, 
great  and  small,  now  with  mighty 
stroke,  and  now  with  heavy  stroke, 
beating  a  great  iron  anvil.  That  is 
what  the  world  has  got  to  come  to — 
anvil  chorus,  j-ard-stick  chorus,  shuttle 
chorus,  trowel  chorus,  crowbar  chorus, 
pick-axe  chorus,  gold-mine  chorus,  rail-track  chorus,  locomotive  chorus.  It 
can  be  •  done,  and  it  will  be  done.  So  all  social  life  will  be  attuned  by  the 
gospel  harp.  There  will  be  as  many  classes  in  society  as  now,  but  the  classes 
will  not  be  regulated  by  birth,  or  wealth,  or  accident,  but  by  the  scale  of  virtue 
and  benevolence,  and  people  will  be  assigned  to  their  places  as  good,  or  ver>'  good, 
or  most  excellent.  So,  also,  commercial  life  will  be  attuned,  and  there  will  be 
twelve  in  every  dozen ,  and  sixteen  ounces  in  every  pound,  and  apples  at  the  bottom 
of  the  barrel  will  be  as  sound  as  those  on  the  top,  and  silk  goods  will  not  be  cot- 
ton, and  sellers  will  not  have  to  charge  honest  people  more  than  the  right  price 
becau.se  others  will  not  pay,  and  goods  will  come  to  you  corresponding^  with  the 
sample  by  which  you  purchased  them,  and  coffee  will  not  be  chickoried,  and  sugar 


AT  THE   CROSS. 


WORKSHOP   OF   A   PHII^OSOPHER   O.F   THE   SIXTEENTH   CENTURY. 

Hieronymus,  a  German  recluse  of  great  piety,  fitted  up  a  room  with  many  comforts  in  the  mountains 
near  Wurtemburg,  and  for  years  had  no  other  companions  than  a  dog  and  pet  lion.  During  his  retire- 
ment he  made  hundreds  of  holy  figures  in  which  one  or  both  of  these  animals  were  invariably  prominent. 


24 


(369) 


370  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

will  not  be  sanded,  and  milk  will  not  be  chalked,  and  adulteration  of  food  will  be 
a  States  prison  offence.  Ay,  all  things  shall  be  attuned.  Elections  in  England 
and  the  United  States  will  no  more  be  a  grand  carnival  of  defamation  and  scurrility, 
but  the  elevation  of  righteous  men  in  a  righteous  way. 

In  the  sixteenth  centur}-  the  singers  called  the  Fischer  Brothers  reached  the 
lowest  bass  ever  recorded,  and  the  highest  note  ever  trilled  was  by  I^a  Bastardella, 
and  Catalini's  voice  had  a  compass  of  three  and  a  half  octaves;  but  Christianity  is 
more  wonderful,  for  it  runs  all  up  and  down  the  greatest  heights  and  the  deepest 
depths  of  the  world's  necessity.  All  the  sacred  music  in  homes,  and  concert  halls 
and  churches  tends  toward  this  consummation.  Make  it  more  and  more  hearty. 
Sing  in  your  families  and  places  of  business.  If  we  with  proper  spirit  use  these 
faculties,  we  are  rehearsing  for  the  skies. 

A  NEW  SONG. 

Heaven  is  to  have  a  new  song,  an  entirely  new  song,  but  I  should  not  wonder 
if,  as  sometimes  on  earth  a  tune  is  fashioned  out  of  man}-  tunes,  or  it  is  one  tune 
with  the  variations,  so  some  of  the  songs  of  the  redeemed  may  have  played 
through  them  the  songs  of  earth;  and  how  thrilling,  as  coming  through  the  great 
anthem  of  the  saved,  accompanied  by  harpers  with  their  harps  and  trumpeters 
with  their  trumpets,  we  should  hear  some  of  the  strains  of  "Antioch,"  and 
"Mount  Pisgah,"  and  "Coronation,"  and  "Eenox,"  and  "St.  Martin's,"  and 
"Fountain,"  and  "Ariel,  and  "Old  Hundred,"  How  they  would  bring  to 
mind  the  praying  circles  and  communion  days,  and  the  Christmas  festivals,  and 
the  Church  worship  in  which  on  earth  we  mingled  ?  I  have  no  idea  that  when 
we  bid  farewell  to  earth  we  are  to  bid  farewell  to  all  these  grand  old  gospel 
hymns,  which  melted  and  raptured  our  souls  for  so  many  years.  Now,  my 
readers,  if  sin  is  discord  and  righteousness  is  harmony,  let  us  get  out  of  the  one 
and  enter  the  other. 

After  our  dreadful  Civil  War  was  over,  and  in  the  summer  of  i86g,  a  great 
national  peace  jubilee  was  held  in  Boston,  and,  as  an  elder  of  my  church  had  been 
honored  by  the  selection  of  some  of  his  music  to  be  rendered  on  that  occasion,  I 
accompanied  him  to  the  jubilee.  Forty  thousand  people  sat  and  stood  in  the 
great  Colosseum  erected  for  that  purpose.  Thousands  of  wind  and  stringed  instru- 
ments. Twelve  thousand  trained  voices.  The  masterpieces  of  all  ages  rendered, 
hour  after  hour,  and  day  after  day — Handel's  "Judas  Maccabaeus,"  Spohr's 
"  Last  Judgment, "  Beethoven's  "  Mount  of  Olives,"  Ha3^dn's  "Creation,"  Men- 
delssohn's "Elijah,"  Meyerbeer's  "Coronation  March,"  rolling  on  and  up  in 
surges  that  billowed  against  the  heavens.  The  mighty  cadences  within  were 
accompanied  on  the  outside  by  the  ringing  of  the  bells  of  the  city  and  cannon  on 
the  commons,  in  exact  time  with  the  music,  discharged  by  electricity,  thundering 


A   POEM   OF  LOVE. 


(371) 


37^ 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


their  awful  bars  of  a  harmony  that  astounded  all  nations.  Sometimes  I  bowed 
my  head  and  wept.  Sometimes  I  stood  up  in  the  enchantment,  and  sometimes 
the  effect  was  so  overpowering  I  felt  I  could  not  endure  it. 

When  all  the  voices  were  in  full  chorus,  and  all  the  batons  in  full  wave,  and 
all  the  orchestra  in  full  triumph,  and  a  hundred  anvils  under  mighty  hammers 
were  in  full  clang,  and  all  the  towers  of  the  city  rolled  in  their  majestic  sweetness, 
and  the  whole  building  quaked  with  the  boom  of  thirty  cannon,  Parepa  Rosa, 
with  a  voice  that  will  never  again  be  equaled  on  earth  until  the  archangelic  voice 
proclaims  that  time  shall  be  no  longer,  rose  above  all  other  sounds  in  her  render- 
ing of  our  national  air,  the  Star-Spangled  Banner.  It  was  too  much  for  a  mortal, 
and  quite  enough  for  an  immortal,  to  hear,  and  while  some  fainted,  one  w^omanly 
spirit,  released  under  its  power,  sped  away  to  be  with  God. 

O  Lord,  our  God,  quickly  usher  in  the  whole  world's  peace  jubilee;  let  all 
islands  of  the  sea  join  the  five  continents,  and  all  the  voices  and  musical  instru- 
ments of  all  nations  combine,  and  all  the  organs  that  ever  sounded  requiem  of 
sorrow  sound  only  a  grand  march  of  joy,  and  all  the  bells  that  tolled  for  burial 
ring  for  resurrection,  and  all  the  cannon  that  ever  hurled  death  across  the  nations 
sound  to  eternal  victory,  and  over  all  the  acclaim  of  earth  and  minstrelsy  of 
heaven  there  will  be  heard  one  voice  sweeter  and  mightier  than  any  human  or 
angelic  voice,  a  voice  once  full  of  tears,  but  then  full  of  triumph,  the  voice  of 
Christ  saying:  "  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  beginning  and  the  end,  the  first  and 
the  last."  Then,  at  the  laying  of  the  top-stone  of  the  world's  history,  the  same 
voices  shall  be  heard  as  when  at  the  laying  of  the  world's  corner-stone,  "the 
morning  stars  sang  together. ' ' 


3[fi5rrXir|:^r:^f;en  l^jcrni^g. 


BAD  LITERATURE,  STOCK  GAMBLING,  CARD  PLAYING,   FARO  AND 
STRONG    DRINK. 

*ARVElvOUSIyY  ingenious  in  architecture  is  the  hone)^-bee,  a 
Christopher  Wren  among  insects,  a  geometer  drawing  hex- 
agons and  pentagons,  a  free-booter  robbing  the  fields  of  pollen 
and  aroma,  a  wonderous  creature  of  God,  whose  biography, 
written  by  Huber  and  Swammerdam,  is  an  enchantment  for 
any  lover  of  nature.  Virgil  celebrated  the  bee  in  his  fable 
of  Aristseus,  and  Moses,  and  Samuel,  and' David,  and  Solomon, 
and  Jeremiah,  and  Ezekiel,  and  St.  John  used  the  delicacies 
of  bee  manufacture  as  Bible  symbol.  A  miracle  of  formation  is  the 
bee;  five  eyes,  two  tongues,  the  outer  having  a  sheath  of  protection 
hairs  on  all  sides  of  its  tiny  body  to  brush  up  the  particles  of  flowers; 
its  flight  so  straight  that  all  the  world  knows  of  the  bee-line.  The 
honeycomb  is  a  palace  such  as  no  one  but  God  could  plan,  and  the 
honej^-bee  construct;  cells  sometimes  a  dormitory,  and  sometimes  a 
storehouse,  and  sometimes  a  cemetery.  These  winged  toilers  first 
make  eight  strips  of  wax,  and  by  their  antennae,  which  are  to  them 
hammer,  and  chisel,  and  square,  and  plumb-line,  fashion  them  for  use. 
Two  and  two,  these  workers  shape  the  \Vall.  If  an  accident  happen 
they  put  up  buttresses  or  extra  beams  to  remed)^  the  damage.  When,  abovit  the 
year  1776,  an  insect,  before  unknown,  in  the  night  time  attacked  the  bee-hives  all 
over  Europe,  and  the  men  who  owned  them  were  in  vain  trying  to  plan  something 
to  keep  out  the  invader  that  was  the  terror  of  the  bee-hives  of  the  continent,  it  was 
■found  that  everywhere  the  bees  had  arranged  for  their  own  protection,  and  built 
before  their  honey-combs  an  especial  wall  of  wax,  with  port- hole  through  which 
the  bees  might  go  to  and  fro,  but  not  large  enough  to  admit  the  winged  combatant, 
called  the  sphinx  atropos. 

Do  3^ou  know  that  the  swarming  of  the  bees  is  divinely  directed  ?  The 
mother  bee  starts  for  a  new  home,  and  because  of  this  the  other  bees  of  the  hive 
get  into  some  excitement,  which  raises  the  heat  of  the  hive  some  four  degrees,  and 
they  must  die  unless  they  leave  their  heated  apartments,  and  they  follow  the 
mother  bee  and  alight  on  the  branch  of  a  tree,  and  cling  to  each  other  and  hold 

(373) 


374  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

on  until  a  committee  of  two  or  three  have  explored  the  region  and  found  the  hol- 
low of  a  tree  or  rock  not  far  off  from  a  stream  of  water,  and  they  here  set  up  a 
new  colony  and  ply  their  aromatic  industries,  and  give  themselves  to  the  manufac- 
ture of  the  saccharine  edible.  But  who  can  tell  the  chemistry  of  that  mixture  of 
sweetness,  part  of  it  the  very  life  of  the  bee  and  part  of  it  the  life  of  the  fields  ? 

THE    FORBIDDEN   HONEY. 

Plenty  of  this  luscious  product  was  hanging  in  the  woods  of  Bethaven  during 
the  time  of  Saul  and  Jonathan.  Their  army  was  in  pursuit  of  an  enemy  that  by 
God's  command  must  be  exterminated.  The  soldiery  were  positively  forbidden  to 
stop  to  eat  anything  until  the  work  was  done.  If  they  disobeyed  they  were 
accursed.  Coming  through  the  w^oods  they  found  a  place  where  the  bees  had  been 
busy —  a  great  honey  manufactory.  Honey  gathered  in  the  hollow  of  trees  until 
it  had  overflowed  upon  the  ground  in  great  profusion  of  sweetness.  All  the  army 
obeyed  orders  and  touched  it  not,  save  Jonathan,  and  he,  not  knowing  the  military 
order  about  abstinence,  dipped  the  end  of  a  stick  he  had  in  his  hand  into  the 
candied  liquid,  and  as  yellow,  and  brown,  and  tempting,  it  glowed  on  the  end  of 
■the  stick,  he  put  it  to  his  mouth  and  ate  the  honey.  Judgment  fell  upon  him,  and 
but  for  special  intervention  he  would  have  been  slain.  Jonathan  announces  his 
awful  mistake  thus:  "  I  did  but  taste  a  little  honey  with  the  end  of  the  rod  that 
was  in  my  hand,  and,  lo,  I  must  die." 

Alas,  what  multitudes  of  people  in  all  ages  have  been  damaged  by  forbidden 
honey — by  which  I  mean  temptation — delicious  and  attractive,  but  damaging  and 
destructive. 

lyiterature,  fascinating  but  deathful,  comes  in  this  category'.  "Where  one  good, 
honest,  healthful  book  is  read  now  there  are  one  hundred  made  up  of  rhetorical 
trash  consumed  with  avidity.  When  the  boy  on  cars  comes  through  with  a  pile 
of  publications,  look  over  the  titles  and  notice  that  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  books 
are  depleting  and  injurious.  All  the  way  from  New  York  to  Chicago  or  New 
Orleans,  notice  that  objectionable  books  dominate.  Taste  for  pure  literature  is 
poisoned  by  this  scum  of  the  publishing  house.  Everj^  book  in  which  sin  triumphs 
over  virtue,  or  in  which  a  glamour  is  thrown  over  dissipation,  or  which  leaves  you 
at  its  last  line  with  less  respect  for  the  marriage  institution,  and  less  abhon'ence  for 
the  paramour,  is  a  depression  of  your  own  moral  character.  The  book  binding 
may  be  attractive,  and  the  plot  dramatic  and  startling,  and  the  style  of  writing 
sweet  as  the  honey  that  Jonathan  dipped  up  with  his  rod,  but  your  best  interests  for- 
bid it,  your  moral  safety  forbids  it,  your  God  forbids  it,  and  one  taste  of  it  may 
lead  to  such  bad  results  that  you  may  have  to  say  at  the  close  of  the  experiment, 
or  at  the  close  of  a  misimproved  lifetime:  "  I  did  but  taste  a  little  hone}^  with  the 
rod  that  was  in  my  hand,  and,  lo,  I  must  die." 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


375 


CORRUPT  INFLUENCE   OF   BAD    BOOKS. 

Corrupt  literature  is  doing  more  to-day  for  the  disruption  of  domestic  life  than 
any  other  cause.     Elopements,   marital  intrigues,   sly  correspondence,    fictitious 
names  given  at  post-office  windows,  clandestine  meetings  in  parks,  and  at  ferrj^ 
gates,  and  in  hotel  parlors,  and  conjugal  perjuries  are  among  the  damnable  results. 
When    a   woman,    young    or 
old,  gets  her  head  thoroughh- 
stuffed  with  the  modern  novel 
she  is  in  appalling  peril.     But 
some    one    will    say:     "The 
heroes  are  so  adroitly  knavish, 
and  the  persons   so   bewitch- 
ingly  untrue,  and  the  turn  of 
the  story  so  exquisite,  and  all 
the  characters  so  enrapturing, 
I    cannot    quit    them."       My 
brother,    my    sister,    you   can 
find  stjdes  of  literature  just  as 
charming  that  will  elevate  and 
purify,  and  ennoble,  and  Chris- 
tianize while  they  plea.se.    The 
devil    does   not   own   all    the 
honey.     There  is  a  wealth  of 
good  books  coming  forth  from 
our    publishing    houses    that 
leaves  no  excuse  for  the  choice 
of  that  w^hich    is  debauching 
to  bod}',  mind  and  soul.     Go 
to   some  intelligent  men    and 
women,  and  ask  for  a  list  of 
books  that  will  be  strengthen- 
ing to  your  mental  and  moral  "^"^^  novei,  j^eadkr. 
condition.     I^ife  is  so  short  and  your  time  for  improvement  so  abbreviated,  that  you 
cannot  afford  to  fill  up  with  husks,  and  cinders,  and  debris.     In  the  interstices  of 
business  that  young  man  is  reading  that  which  will  prepare  him  to  be  a  merchant 
prince,  and  that  young  woman  is  filling  her  mind  with  an  intelligence  that  will 
yet  either  make  her  the  chief  attraction  of  a  good  man's  home,  or  give  her  an 
independence  of  character  that  will  qualify  her  to  build  her  own  home  and  main- 
tain it  in  a  happiness  that  requires  no  augmentation  from  any  of  our  rougher  sex. 
That  young  man  or  young  woman  can,  by  the  right  literary  and  moral  improvement 


376  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

of  the  spare  ten  minutes  here  or  there  in  every  day,  rise  head  and  shoulders 
in  prosperity,  and  character,  and  influence  above  the  loungers  who  read  nothing 
or  that  which  bedwarfs.  See  all  the  forests  of  good  American  literature  dripping 
with  honey.  Why  pick  up  the  honey-combs  that  have  in  them  the  fiery  bees 
which  will  sting  you  with  an  eternal  poison  while  you  taste  it  ?  One  book  may 
for  you  or  me  decide  everything  for  this  world  or  the  next.  It  was  a  turning  point 
with  me  when  in  Wynkoop's  book  store,  Syracuse,  one  day  I  picked  up  a  book 
called  "  The  Beauties  of  Ruskin."  It  was  only  a  book  of  extracts,  but  it  was  all 
pure  honey,  and  I  was  not  satisfied  until  I  had  purchased  all  his  works,  at  that 
time  expensive  beyond  an  easy  capacity  to  own  them,  and  what  a  heaven  I  went 
through  in  reading  his  "Seven  I^amps  of  Architecture,"  and  his  "Stones  of 
Venice."  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  describe  except  by  saying  that  it  gave  me  a 
rapture  for  good  books,  and  an  everlasting  disgust  for  decrepit  or  immoral  books 
that  will  last  me  while  my  immortal  soul  lasts.  All  around  the  Church  and  the 
world  to-day  there  are  busy  hives  of  intelligence  occupied  by  authors  and  author- 
esses from  whose  pen  drip  a  distillation  which  is  the  very  nectar  of  heaven,  and 
why  will  you  thrust  your  rod  of  inquisitiveness  into  the  deathful  saccharine  of 
perdition  ? 

THE  FALSE  HONEY  OF   STIMULANTS. 

Stimulating  liquids  also  come  into  the  category  of  temptations  delicious  but 
deathful.  You  say:  "  I  cannot  bear  the  taste  of  intoxicating  liquor,  and  how  any 
man  can  like  it  is  to  me  an  amazement."  Well  then,  it  is  no  credit  to  you  that 
you  do  not  take  it.  Do  not  brag  about  your  total  abstinence,  because  it  is  not  from 
any  principle  that  you  reject  alcoholism,  but  for  the  same  reason  that  you  would 
reject  certain  styles  of  food — you  simply  don't  like  the  taste  of  them.  But  multi- 
tudes of  people  have  a  natural  fondness  for  all  kinds  of  intoxicants.  They  like  it 
so  much  that  it  makes  them  smack  their  lips  to  look  at  it.  They  are  dyspeptic, 
and  they  take  it  to  aid  digestion;  or  they  are  annoyed  by  insomnia,  and  they  take 
it  to  produce  sleep;  or  they  are  troubled,  and  they  take  it  to  make  them  oblivious; 
or  they  feel  good  and  they  must  celebrate  their  hilarity.  They  begin  with  mint 
julep  sucked  through  two  straws  on  the  Long  Branch  piazza  and  end  in  the  ditch, 
taking  from  a  jug  a  liquid  half  kerosene  and  half  whisky.  They  not  only  like 
it,  but  it  is  an  all-consuming  passion  of  body,  mind  and  soul,  and  after  a  while 
have  it  they  will,  though  one  wine-glass  of  it  should  cost  the  temporal  and  eternal 
destruction  of  themselves,  and  all  their  families,  and  the  whole  human  race.  They 
would  say:  "  I  am  sorry  it  is  going  to  cost  me,  and  my  family,  and  all  the  world's 
population  so  very  much,  but  here  it  goes  to  my  lips,  and  now  let  it  roll  over  my 
parched  tongue  and  down  my  heated  throat,  the  sweetest,  the  most  inspiring,  the 
most  rapturous  thing  that  ever  thrilled  mortal  or  immortal. ' ' 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


377 


To  cure  the  habit  before  it  comes  to  its  last  stages,  various  plans  were  tried 
in  olden  times.  This  plan  was  recommended  in  the  books:  When  a  man  wanted 
to  reform  he  put  shot  or  bullets  into  the  cup  or  glass  of  strong  drink — one  addi- 
tional shot  or  bullet  each  day,  that  displaced  so  much  liquor.     Bullet  after  bullet 


AFTKR  The  feast,  "YOUR  LITTLE  BILL,  SIR." — FroDi  the  Painting  by  F.  Dadd. 

added  da}'  by  day,  of  course  the  liquor  became  less  and  less  until  the  bullets  would 
entirely  fill  up  the  glass  and  there  was  no  room  for  the  liquid,  and  by  that  time  it 
was  said  the  inebriate  would  be  cured.     Whether  any  one  ever  was  cured  in  that 


378  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

way  I  know  not,  but  by  long  experiment  it  is  found  that  the  only  way  is  to  stop 
short  off,  and  when  a  man  does  that  he  needs  God  to  help  him.  And  there  have 
been  more  cases  than  you  can  count  when  God  has  so  helped  the  man  that  he  quit 
forever,  and  I  could  count  a  score  of  them  to-day,  some  of  them  pillars  in  the 
house  of  God. 

One  would  suppose  that  men  would  take  warning  from  some  of  the  ominous 
names  given  to  the  intoxicants,  and  stand  off  from  the  devastating  influence.  You 
have  noticed,  for  instance,  that  some  of  the  restaurants  are  called  "  The  Shades," 
typical  of  the  fact  that  it  puts  a  man's  reputation  in  the  shade,  and  his  morals  ia 
the  shade,  and  his  prosperity  in  the  shade,  and  his  wife  and  children  in  the  shade, 
and  his  immortal  destiny  in  the  shade. 

Now,  I  find  on  some  of  the  liquor  signs  in  all  of  our  cities  the  words  "Old. 
Crow,"  mightily  suggestive  of  a  carcass  and  the  filthy  raven  that  swoops  Upon  it. 
"Old  Crow!"  Men  and  women  without  numbers  slain  of  rum,  but  unburied, 
and  this  evil  is  pecking  at  their  glazed  eyes,  and  pecking  at  their  bloated  cheek, 
and  pecking  at  their  destroyed  manhood  and  womanhood,  thrusting  beak  and  claw 
into  the  mortal  remains  of  what  was  once  gloriously  alive,  but  now  morally  dead. 
"  Old  Crow  !"  But  alas,  how  many  take  no  warning.  They  make  me  think  of 
Caesar  on  his  way  to  assassination,  fearing  nothing;  though  his  statue  in  the  hall 
crashed  into  fragments  at  his  feet,  and  a  scroll  containing  the  names  of  the  con- 
spirators was  thrust  into  his  hands,  yet  walking  right  on  to  meet  the  dagger  that 
was  to  take  his  life.  This  infatuation  of  strong  drink  is  so  mighty  in  many  a  man 
that  though  his  fortunes  are  crashing,  and  his  health  is  crashing,  and  his  domestic 
interests  are  crashing,  and  we  hand  him  a  long  scroll  containing  the  names  of 
perils  that  await  him,  he  goes  straight  on  to  physical,  and  mental,  and  moral  assas- 
sination. In  proportion  as  any  style  of  alcoholism  is  pleasant  to  your  taste,  and 
stimulating  to  your  nerves,  and  for  a  time  delightful  to  all  your  physical  and 
mental  constitution,  is  the  peril  awful  !  Remember  Jonathan  and  the  forbidden 
honey  in  the  woods  of  Bethaven. 

Furthermore,  the  gamester's  indulgence  must  be  put  in  the  list  of  temptations 
delicious  but  destructive.  I  have  croSvSed  the  ocean  eight  times,  and  always  one 
of  the  best  rooms  has,  from  morning  till  late  at  night,  been  given  up  to  gambling 
practices.  I  heard  of  many  men  who  went  on  board  with  money  enough  for  a 
European  excursion  who  landed  without  money  enough  to  get  their  baggage  up  to- 
the  hotel  or  railroad  station.  To  many  there  is  a  complete  fascination  in  games 
of  hazard,  or  the  risking  of  money  on  possibilities.  It  seems  as  natural  for  them 
to  bet  as  to  eat.  Indeed,  the  hunger  for  food  is  often  overpowered  with  the  hunger 
for  wagers,  as  in  the  case  of  Lord  Sandwich,  a  persistent  gambler,  who,  not  being 
willing  to  leave  the  dice  table  long  enough  for  the  taking  of  food,  invented  a  pre- 
paration of  food  that  he  could  take  without  stopping  the  game,  namely,  a  slice  of 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  379 

beef  between  two  slices  of  bread,  which  was  named  after  Lord  Sandwich.  It  is 
absurd  for  those  of  us  who  never  felt  the  fascination  of  the  wager  to  speak  slight- 
ingly of  the  temptation.  It  has  slain  a  multitude  of  intellectual  and  moral  giants, 
men  and  women,  stronger  than  jou  or  I.  Down  under  its  power  went  glorious 
Oliver  Goldsmith,  and  Gibbon,  the  historian,  and  Charles  Fox,  the  statesman,  and 
in  olden  times  famous  Senators  of  the  United  States,  who  used  to  be  as  regularly 
at  the  gambling  house  all  night  as  they  were  in  the  halls  of  legislation  by  day. 

FARO  AND  CARD   PLAYING. 

Oh,  the  tragedies  of  the  faro  table  !  I  know  persons  who  began  with  a  slight 
stake  in  a  ladies'  parlor,  and  ended  with  the  suicide's  pistol  at  Monte  Carlo.  The)-- 
played  with  the  square  pieces  of  bone  with  black  marks  on  them,  not  knowing 
that  Satan  was  playing  for  their  bones  at  the  same  time,  and  was  sure  to  sweep  all 
the  stakes  off  on  his  side  of  the  table.  The  New  York  Legislature  recently  sanc- 
tioned the  might)^  evil  by  passing  a  law  for  its  defence  at  the  race-tracks,  and  many 
young  men  in  these  cities  lost  all  their  wages  at  Coney  Island  and  were  tempted 
into  borrowing  from  the  money  tills  of  their  employers  or  arranging  by  means  of 
false  entry  to  adjust  their  demoralized  finances.  Every  man  who  voted  for  the 
Ives  pool  bill  has  on  his  hands  and  forehead  the  blood  of  these  souls. 

But  in  this  connection  some  young  converts  say  to  me:  "Is  it  right  to  play 
cards?  Is  there  any  harm  in  a  game  of  whist  or  euchre?"  Well,  I  know  good 
men  who  play  whist  and  euchre  and  other  styles  of  games  without  any  wagers.  I 
had  a  friend  who  played  cards  with  his  wife  and  children,  and  then  at  the  close 
said:  "Come,  now,  let  us  have  prayers."  I  will  not  judge  other  men's  con- 
sciences, but  I  will  tell  you  that  cards  are  in  my  mind  so  associated  with  the  tem- 
poral and  eternal  damnation  of  splendid  young  men,  that  I  should  no  sooner  say 
to  my  family:  "Come,  let  us  have  a  game  of  cards,"  than  I  would  go  into  a 
menagerie  and  say,  "  Come,  let  us  have  a  game  of  rattlesnakes,"  or  into  a  ceme- 
tery, and,  sitting  down  by  a  marble  slab,  say  to  the  grave-diggers,  "  Come,  let  us 
have  a  game  of  skulls."  Conscientious  young  ladies  are  silently  saying:  "Do 
you  think  card  playing  will  do  us  any  harm?"  Perhaps  not;  but  how  will  you 
feel  if  in  the  great  day  of  eternity,  when  we  are  asked  to  give  an  account  of  our 
influence,  some  man  shall  say  to  you:  "  I  was  introduced  to  games  of  chance  in 
the  year  1888,  at  your  house,  and  I  went  on  from  that  sport  to  something  more 
exciting,  and  went  on  down  until  I  lost  my  business,  and  lost  my  morals,  and  lost 
my  soul,  and  these  chains  that  3^ou  see  on  my  wrists  and  feet  are  the  chains  of  a 
gamester's  doom,  and  I  am  on  my  way  to  a  gambler's  hell."  Honey  at  the 
Start — eternal  catastrophe  at  the  last. 

Stock  gambling  comes  into  the  same  catalogue.  It  must  be  very  exhilarating 
to   go    into   Wall   street.    New   York,    or   State  street,   Boston,  or  Third  street. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I,IFE. 

Philadelphia,  and  depositing  a  small  sum  of  money,  run  the 
risk  of  taking  out  a  fortune.     Many  men  are  doing  an  honest 
and  safe  business  in  the  stock  market,  and  you  are  an  igno- 
ramus if  you  do  not  know  that  it  is  just  as  legitimate  to  deal 
in  stocks  as  to  deal  in  coflFee,  or  sugar,  or  flour.     But  nearly 
all  the  outsiders  who  go  there  on  a  little  financial 
excursion  lose  all.     The  old  spiders  eat  up  the 
unsuspecting  flies.       I  had  a  friend  who  put  his 
hand  on  his  hip  pocket  and  said  to  me  in  sub- 
stance:  "I  have  there   the  value  of  $150,000." 
His  home  is  to-day   penniless.      What  was  the 
matter?     Wall  street.     Of  the  vast  ma- 
jority who  are  victimized  you  hear  not 
one  word.       One  great  stock   firm   goes 
down  and  whole  columns  of  newspapers 
discuss  their  fraud,  or  their  disaster,  and 
we  are  presented  with  their  features  and 
their   biography.       But  where  one  such 
famous  firm  sinks,  five  hundred  unknown 
men  sink  with  them.     The  great 
steamer  goes  down  and  all  the 
little  boats  are  swallowed  in  the 
same  engulfment.      I^ike  Boad- 
icea  of  old,   who,   in  wreaking 
her  vengeance,  brought  destruc- 
tion on  thousands  of  innocents, 
and  lastly  upon  her  own  head. 

Gambling  is  gambling, 
whether  in  stocks  or  bread- 
stuffs  or  dice  or  race-track  bet- 
ting. Exhilaration  at  the  start, 
and  a  raving  brain,  and  a  shat- 
tered nervous  system,  and  a  sac- 
rificed propert}^  and  a  destroyed 
soul  at  the  last.  Young  man, 
buy  no  lotterj^  tickets,  purchase 
no  prize  packages,  bet  on  no 
base-ball  games  or  yacht  racing, 
have  no  faith  in  luck,  answer  no 
mysterious   circulars   proposing 


Boadicea  was  an  An^'o,  Or  British,  heroine,  queen  of  the  Iceni. 
Havinsr  been  basely  and  harshly  treated  by  the  Romans,  she 
headed  an  insurrection,  which  destroyed  several  Roman  settle- 
ments and  then  reduced  London  to  ashes,  A.  D.  about  60.  She  was 
afterwards  defeated  by  Paulinus,  and  being  taken  prisoner,  she  put 
an  end  to  her  life  by  poison. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  381 

great  income  for  small  investment,  shoo  away  the  buzzards  that  hover  around  our 
hotels  trying  to  entrap  strangers.  Go  out  and  make  an  honest  living.  Have  God 
on  your  side  and  be  a  candidate  for  heaven.  Remember  all  the  paths  of  sin  are 
banked  with  flowers  at  the  start,  and  there  are  plenty  of  helpful  hands  to  fetch 
the  gay  charger  to  your  door  and  hold  the  stirrup  while  you  mount.  But  further 
on  the  horse  plunges  to  the  bit  in  a  slough  inextricable.  The  best  hone}-  is  not 
like  that  which  Jonathan  took  on  the  end  of  the  rod  and  brought  to  his  lip, 
but  that  which  God  puts  on  the  banqueting  table  of  mercy,  at  which  we  are  all 
invited  to  sit. 

I  was  reading  of  a  boy  among  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  ascending  a  dan- 
gerous place  with  his  father  and  the  guides.  The  boy  stopped  on  the  edge  of  the 
cliff,  and  said:   "There  is  a  flower  I  mean  to  get." 

"  Come  away  from  there,"  said  the  father;   "  you  will  fall  off." 

"  No,"  said  he;  "  I  must  get  that  beautiful  flower;"  and  the  guides  rushed 
toward  him  to  pull  him  back,  when  they  heard  him  say,  "  I  almost  have  it,"  as 
he  fell  2000  feet. 

Birds  of  prey  were  seen  a  few  days  after  circling  through  the  air  and  lowering 
gradually  to  the  place  where  the  corpse  lay. 

SEEK  ONLY  THE  HONEY  OF    HEAVEN. 

Why  seek  flowers  off  the  edge  of  a  precipice  when  you  may  walk  knee-deep 
amid  the  full  blooms  of  the  very  paradise  of  God  ?  When  a  man  may  sit  at  a 
king's  banquet,  why  will  he  go  down  the  steps  and  contend  for  the  gristle  and 
bones  of  a  hound's  kennel?  "Sweeter  than  honey  and  the  honey-comb,"  says 
David,  "is  the  truth  of  God."  "With  honey  out  of  the  rock  would  I  have 
satisfied  thee,"  saj-s  God  to  the  recreant.  Here  is  honej^  gathered  from  the 
blossoms  of  trees  of  life,  and  with  a  rod  made  out  of  the  wood  of  the  cross  I  dip 
it  up  for  all  your  souls. 

The  poet  Hesiod  tells  of  an  ambrosia  and  a  nectar,  the  drinking  of  which 
would  make  men  live  forever,  and  one  sip  of  this  honey  from  the  Eternal  Rock 
will  give  3-ou  immortal  life  with  God.  Come  off  the  malarial  levels  of  a  sinful 
life.  Come  and  live  on  the  uplands  of  grace  where  the  vineyards  sun  themselves. 
Oh,  taste  and  see  that  the  L,ord  is  gracious.  Be  happy  now  and  happ}^  forever. 
For  those  who  take  a  different  course  the  honey  will  turn  to  gall. 

For  man}'  things  I  have  admired  Percy  Shelley,  the  great  English  poet,  but  I 
deplore  the  fact  that  it  was  a  great  sweetness  to  him  to  dishonor  God.  The 
poem  "Queen  Mab  "  has  in  it  the  maligning  of  the  Deity.  The  infidel  poet 
was  impious  enough  to  ask  for  Rowland  Hill's  Surrey  Chapel  that  he  might 
denounce  the  Christian  religion.  He  was  in  great  glee  against  God  and  the  truth. 
But  he  visited  Italy,  and  one  day  on  the  Mediterranean  with  two  friends  in  a 


382 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


boat,  which  was  twenty-four  feet  long,  he  was  coming  toward  shore  when  a 
great  squall  struck  the  water.  A  gentleman  standing  on  shore  through  a  glass 
saw  many  boats  tossed  in  this  squall,  but  all  outrode  the  terror  except  one,  that 
in  which  Shelley,  the  infidel  poet,  and  his  two  friends  were  sailing.  That  never 
came  ashore,  but  the  bodies  of  two  of  the  occupants  were  washed  upon  the  beach, 
one  of  them  the  poet.  A  funeral  pyre  was  built  on  the  seashore  by  some  classic 
friends,  and  the  two  bodies  were  consumed.  His  glory  went  up  with  the  flames 
that  consumed  him,  like  the  funeral  pyre  of  the  Nor.se  King  who  thought  to 
perpetuate  his  name  on  earth  and  secure  everlasting  blessing  hereafter  by  having 
his  body  devoured  by  fire,  and  his  spirit  accompanied  thither  by  the  soul  of  a 
self-sacrificed  wife  and  the  burning  of  prisoners.  Poor  Shelley  !  He  would  have 
no  God  while  he  lived,  and  he  probably  had  no  God  when  he  died.  "The  Lord 
knoweth  the  way  of  the  righteous,  but  the  way  of  the  ungodly  shall  perish." 


M^J^ 


)itJCti^i    o^    ^mcjci^^^* 


REVERSES  THAT  REFINE   CHARACTER  AND   ELEVATE   THE 
SUFFERER. 


OTHING  in  the  world  can  keep  a  good  man  down.  God 
has  decreed  for  him  a  certain  elevation  to  which  he  must 
attain.  He  will  bring  him  through  though  it  cost  Him  a 
thousand  worlds.  There  are  men  constantly  in  trouble  lest 
they  shall  not  be  appreciated.  Every  man  comes  in  the  end 
to  be  valued  at  just  what  he  is  worth.  How  often  you  see 
men  turn  out  all  their  forces  to  crush  one  man  or  set  of  men.  How  do  they 
succeed  ?  No  better  than  did  the  government  that  tried  to  crush  Joseph.  Learn 
from  the  story  of  Joseph  that  the  world  is  compelled  to  honor  Christian  character. 
Potiphar  was  only  a  man  of  the  world,  yet  Joseph  rose  in  his  estimation  until  all 
the  aifairs  of  that  great  house  were  committed  to  his  charge.  From  this  servant 
no  honors  or  confidences  were  withheld.  When  Joseph  was  in  prison  he  soon 
won  the  heart  of  the  keeper,  and,  though  placed  there  for  being  a  scoundrel,  he 
soon  convinced  the  jailer  that  he  was  an  innocent  and  trustworthy  man,  and, 
released  from  close  confinement,  he  became  a  general  superintendent  of  prisoa 
affairs.  Wherever  Joseph  was  placed — whether  a  servant  in  the  house  of  Potiphar 
or  a  prisoner  in  the  penitentiary — he  became  the  first  man  everywhere,  and  is 
an  illustration  of  the  truth  I  lay  down,  that  the  world  is  compelled  to  honor 
•Christian  character. 

Chr3'sostom,  when  threatened  with  death  by  Budoxia,  the  Empress,  sent 
word  to  her,  saying:  "  Go  tell  her  that  I  fear  nothing  but  sin."  Such  nobility 
of  character  will  always  be  applauded.  There  was  something  in  Agrippa  and 
Felix  which  demanded  their  respect  for  Paul,  the  rebel  against  government.  I 
doubt  not  that  they  would  willingly  have  yielded  their  office  and  dignity  for  the 
thousandth  part  of  that  true  heroism  which  beamed  in  the  eye  and  beat  in  the 
heart  of  the  unconquerable  apostle.  The  infidel  and  worldling  are  compelled  to 
honor  in  their  hearts,  though  they  maj^  not  eulogize  with  their  lips,  a  Christian 
firm  in  persecution,  cheerful  in  poverty,  trustful  in  losses,  triumphant  in  death. 

I  find  Christian  men  in  all  professions  and  occupations  and  I  find  them 
respected  and  honored,  and  successful.  John  Frederick  Oberlin  alleviating  igno- 
rance and  distress;  John  Howard  passing  from  dungeon  to  lazaretto,  with  healing 
for  the  body  and  soul;  Elizabeth  Fry  coming  to  the  profligates  of  Newgate  Prison 

(383) 


382 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


boat,  which  was  twenty-four  feet  long,  he  was  coming  toward  shore  when  a 
great  squall  struck  the  water.  A  gentleman  standing  on  shore  through  a  glass 
saw  many  boats  tossed  in  this  squall,  but  all  outrode  the  terror  except  one,  that 
in  which  Shelley,  the  infidel  poet,  and  his  two  friends  were  sailing.  That  never 
came  ashore,  but  the  bodies  of  two  of  the  occupants  were  washed  upon  the  beach, 
one  of  them  the  poet.  A  funeral  pyre  was  built  on  the  seashore  by  some  classic 
friends,  and  the  two  bodies  were  consumed.  His  glory  went  up  with  the  flames 
that  consumed  him,  like  the  funeral  pyre  of  the  Norse  King  who  thought  to 
perpetuate  his  name  on  earth  and  secure  everlasting  blessing  hereafter  by  having 
his  body  devoured  by  fire,  and  his  spirit  accompanied  thither  by  the  soul  of  a 
self-sacrificed  wife  and  the  burning  of  prisoners.  Poor  Shelley  !  He  would  have 
no  God  while  he  lived,  and  he  probably  had  no  God  when  he  died.  "  The  L,ord 
knoweth  the  way  of  the  righteous,  but  the  way  of  the  ungodly  shall  perish." 


®It^    S^^r^ei    i>t    SwjrjCj0j$3$^ 


REVERSES  THAT  REFINE   CHARACTER  AND   ELEVATE   THE 
SUFFERER. 


OTHING  in  the  world  can  keep  a  good  man  down.  God 
has  decreed  for  him  a  certain  elevation  to  which  he  must 
attain.  He  will  bring  him  through  though  it  cost  Him  a 
thousand  worlds.  There  are  men  constantly  in  trouble  lest 
they  shall  not  be  appreciated.  Every  man  comes  in  the  end 
to  be  valued  at  just  what  he  is  worth.  How  often  you  see 
men  turn  out  all  their  forces  to  crush  one  man  or  set  of  men.  How  do  they 
succeed  ?  No  better  than  did  the  government  that  tried  to  crush  Joseph.  Learn 
from  the  story  of  Joseph  that  the  world  is  compelled  to  honor  Christian  character. 
Potiphar  was  only  a  man  of  the  world,  yet  Joseph  rose  in  his  estimation  until  all 
the  affairs  of  that  great  house  were  committed  to  his  charge.  From  this  servant 
no  honors  or  confidences  were  withheld.  When  Joseph  was  in  prison  he  soon 
won  the  heart  of  the  keeper,  and,  though  placed  there  for  being  a  scoundrel,  he 
soon  convinced  the  jailer  that  he  was  an  innocent  and  trustworthy  man,  and, 
released  from  close  confinement,  he  became  a  general  superintendent  of  prisoM 
affairs.  Wherever  Joseph  was  placed — whether  a  servant  in  the  house  of  Potiphar 
or  a  prisoner  in  the  penitentiary — he  became  the  first  man  everywhere,  and  is 
an  illustration  of  the  truth  I  lay  down,  that  the  world  is  compelled  to  honor 
•Christian  character. 

Chrysostom,  when  threatened  with  death  by  Eudoxia,  the  Empress,  sent 
word  to  her,  saying:  "  Go  tell  her  that  I  fear  nothing  but  sin."  Such  nobility 
of  character  will  always  be  applauded.  There  was  something  in  Agrippa  and 
Felix  which  demanded  their  respect  for  Paul,  the  rebel  against  government.  I 
doubt  not  that  they  would  willingly  have  yielded  their  office  and  dignity  for  the 
thousandth  part  of  that  true  heroism  which  beamed  in  the  eye  and  beat  in  the 
heart  of  the  unconquerable  apostle.  The  infidel  and  worldling  are  compelled  to 
honor  in  their  hearts,  though  they  ma}^  not  eulogize  with  their  lips,  a  Christian 
firm  in  persecution,  cheerful  in  poverty,  trustful  in  losses,  triumphant  in  death. 

I  find  Christian  men  in  all  professions  and  occupations  and  I  find  them 
respected  and  honored,  and  successful.  John  Frederick  Oberlin  alleviating  igno- 
rance and  distress;  John  Howard  passing  from  dungeon  to  lazaretto,  with  healing 
for  the  body  and  soul;  Elizabeth  Fry  coming  to  the  profligates  of  Newgate  Prison 

(383) 


384 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFK. 


to  shake  down  their  obduracy,  as  the  angel  came  to  the  prison  at  Phihppi,  driving 
open  the  doors  and  snapping  locks  and  chains,  as  well  as  the  lives  of  thousands 
of  the  followers  of  Jesus  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  the  temporal  and  spiritual 


ELIZABETH   FRY   PLEADING   EOR   THE  PARDON   OF   CONVERTED   CRIMINALS. 

From  the  Painting  by  Eviile  Wauters. 

welfare  of  the  race,  are  monuments  of  the  Christian  religion  that  shall  not  crumble 
while  the  world  lasts. 

A  man  in  the  cars  said:  "  I  would  like  to  become  a  Christian  if  I  only  knew 
what  religion  is.  But  if  this  lying  and  cheating,  and  bad  behavior  among  men 
who  profess  to  be  good,  is  religion,  I  want  none  of  it."  But,  my  readers,  if  I  am 
an  artist  in  Rome,  and  a  man  comes  to  me  and  asks  what  the  art  of  painting  is,  I 
must  not  show  him  the  daub  of  some  mere  pretender.     I  will  take  him  to  the 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


385 


Raphaels  and  the  Michael  Angelos.     It  is  most  unfair  and  dishonest  to  take  the 
ignominious  failures  in  Christian  profession  instead  of  the  glorious  successes. 

PERSECUTIONS   BRING  ABOUT  VICTORIES. 

I  go  into  another  department  and  I  find  that  those  great  denominations  of 
Christians  which  have  been  most  abused  have  spread  the  most  rapidl}-.  No  good 
man  was  ever  more  vilely 
maltreated  than  John 
Wesley.  His  followers 
were  hooted  at  and  ma- 
ligned and  called  by 
every  detestable  name 
that  infernal  ingenuity 
could  invent,  but  the  hot- 
ter the  persecution  the 
more  rapid  the  spread  of 
that  denomination  until 
you  know  what  a  great 
host  they  have  become, 
and  what  a  tremendous 
force  for  God  and  the 
truth  they  are  wielding 
all  the  world  over.  It 
was  persecution  that  gave 
Scotland  to  Presbyte- 
rianism.  It  was  perse- 
cution which  gave  our 
own  land  first  to  civil 
liberty  and  afterwards  to 
religious  freedom.  Yea, 
I  may  go  further  back 
and  say  it  was  persecu- 
tion that  gave  the  world 
the  great  salvation  of  the 
gospel.  The  ribald 
mockery,  the  hungering 
and  thirsting,  the  unjust 
trial  and  ignominious 
death,  where  all  the  force  of  hell's  fury  was  hurled  against  the  cross,  where 
the  introduction  of  that  religion  which  is  yet  to  be  the  earth's  deliverance  from 
25 


THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  ST.  SEBASTIAN. — Ft'om  the  Painting  by 
Antonio  Pollainolo. 


386  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

guilt  and  suffering,  and  her  everlasting  enthronement  among  the  principalities  of 
heaven. 

The  fires  of  the  stake  have  only  been  the  torches  which  Christ  held  in  His 
hand  by  the  light  of  which  the  Church  has  marched  to  her  present  position.  In 
the  sound  of  racks  and  implements  of  torture  I  hear  the  rumbling  of  the  wheels  of 
the  gospel  chariot.  Scaffolds  of  martyrdom  have  been  the  stairs  by  which  the 
Church  has  ascended.     Aquafortis  is  the  best  test  of  pure  gold, 

CRIME  WILL  OUT. 

Furthermore,  our  subject  impresses  us  that  sins  will  come  to  exposure.  Eong, 
long  ago  had  these  brothers  sold  Joseph  into  Egypt.  They  had  suppressed  the 
crime,  and  it  was  a  profound  secret,  well  kept  by  the  brothers.  But  suddenly  the 
secret  is  out.  The  old  father  hears  that  his  son  is  in  Egypt,  having  been  sold 
there  by  the  malice  of  his  own  brothers.  How  their  cheeks  must  have  burned  and 
their  hearts  sunk  at  the  flaming  out  of  this  suppressed  crime.  The  smallest  iniquity 
has  a  thousand  tongues,  and  they  will  blab  out  an  exposure. 

Saul  was  sent  to  destroy  the  Canaanites,  their  sheep  and  their  oxen.  But 
when  he  got  down  there  among  the  pastures  he  saw  some  fine  sheep  and  oxen  too 
fat  too  kill,  and  so  he  thought  he  would  steal  them.  He  drove  them  towards 
home,  but  stopped  to  report  to  the  prophet  how  well  he  had  executed  his  commis- 
sion, when  in  the  distance  the  sheep  began  to  bleat  and  the  oxen  to  bellow.  The 
secret  was  out,  and  Samuel  said  to  the  blushing  and  confounded  Saul:  "What 
means  the  bleating  of  the  sheep  that  I  hear  and  the  lowing  of  the  cattle?" 

Ay,  dear  reader,  you  cannot  keep  an  iniquity  quiet.  At  just  the  wrong  time 
the  sheep  will  bleat  and  the  oxen  will  bellow.  Achan  cannot  steal  the  Babylonish 
garment  without  getting  stoned  to  death.  Eook  over  the  police  arrests — these 
thieves,  these  burglars,  these  adulterers,  these  counterfeiters,  these  highwaymen, 
these  assassins.  They  all  thought  they  could  bury  their  iniquity  so  deep  down 
that  it  would  never  come  to  resurrection.  But  there  was  some  shoe  that  answered 
to  the  print  in  the  sand,  some  false  keys  found  in  possession,  some  bloody  knife 
that  whispered  of  the  deed,  and  the  public  indignation  and  the  anathema  of  out- 
raged law  hurled  him  into  the  Tombs  or  hoisted  him  on  the  gallows. 

EASIER  TO  SIN  THAN  TO  GET  OUT  OF  IT. 

At  the  close  of  the  battle  between  the  Dauphin  of  France  and  the  Helvetians, 
Burchard  Monk  was  so  elated  with  the  victory  that  he  lifted  his  helmet  to  look  off 
upon  the  field,  when  a  wounded  soldier  hurled  a  stone  that  struck  his  uncovered 
forehead  and  he  fell.  Sin  will  always  leave  some  point  exposed,  and  there  is  no 
safety  in  iniquit5\  Francis  the  First,  King  of  France,  was  discussing  how  it  was 
best  to  get  his  army  into  Italy.    Amaril,  the  court  fool,  sprang  out  from  the  corner 


FAILURE — PLEASURE  BEFOkn  isuciiiMiaa. — ^jicr  u  Fainting  by  Emanuel  Spitzer. 


(3S7) 


388  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

and  said  to  the  king  and  his  staff  officers:   "  You  had  better  be  thinking  how  you 
will  get  your  army  back  out  of  Italy  after  once  you  have  entered." 

In  other  words,  it  is  easier  for  us  to  get  into  sin  than  to  get  out  of  it.  White- 
field  was  riding  on  horseback  in  a  lonely  way  with  some  missionary  money  in  a 
sack  fastened  to  the  saddle-bags.  A  highwayman  sprang  out  from  the  thicjjet  and 
put  his  hand  out  toward  the  gold,  when  Whitefield  turned  upon  him  and  said: 
"  That  belongs  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  touch  it  if  you  dare,"  and  the  villain  fell 
back  empty-handed  into  the  thicket.  Oh,  the  power  of  conscience  !  If  offended 
it  becomes  God's  avenging  minister.  Do  not  think  that  you  can  hide  any  great 
and  protracted  sin  in  your  hearts.  In  an  unguarded  moment  it  will  slip  off  the 
lip,  or  some  slight  occasion  may  for  a  moment  set  ajar  this  door  of  hell  that  }ou 
wanted  to  keep  closed.  But  suppose  that  in  this  life  you  hide  it,  and  you  get 
along  with  that  transgression  burning  in  your  heart,  as  a  ship  on  fire  within 
for  days  may  hinder  the  flame  from  bursting  out  by  keeping  down  the  hatchways, 
yet  at  last,  in  the  judgment,  that  iniquity  will  blaze  out  before  the  throne  of  God 
and  the  universe. 

ALL  EVENTS  LINKED  TOGETHER. 

Furthermore,  learn  from  this  subject  the  inseparable  connection  between  all 
events  however  remote.  Lord  Hastings  was  beheaded  one  year  after  he  had  caused 
the  death  of  the  queen's  children,  in  the  very  month,  the  verj^  day,  the  ver>-  hour 
and  the  very  moment.  There  is  wonderful  precision  in  the  divine  judgments. 
The  universe  is  only  one  thought  of  God.  Those  things  which  seem  fragmentary 
and  isolated  are  only  different  parts  of  that  one  great  thought.  How  far  apart 
seemed  these  two  events — ^Joseph  sold  to  the  Arabian  merchants  and  the  rulership 
of  Egypt.  Yet  3'ou  see  in  what  a  mysterious  way  God  connected  the  two  in  one 
plan.  So  all  events  are  linked  together.  You  who  are  aged  can  look  back  and 
group  together  a  thousand  things  in  your  life  that  once  seemed  isolated.  One 
undivided  chain  of  events  reached  from  the  Garden  of  Eden  to  the  cross  of  Calvarj^ 
and  thus  up  to  heaven.  There  is  a  relation  between  the  smallest  insect  that  hums 
in  the  summer  air  and  the  archangel  on  his  throne.  God  can  trace  a  direct  ances- 
tral line  from  the  bluejay  that  last  spring  built  its  nest  in  a  tree  behind  the  house  to 
some  one  of  that  flock  of  birds  which,  when  Noah  hoisted  the  ark's  window,  with 
a  whirl  and  a  dash  of  bright  wings  went  out  to  sing  over  Mount  Ararat.  The 
tulips  that  bloomed  this  summer  in  the  flower-bed  were  nursed  of  last  winter's 
snow  flakes.  The  furthest  star  on  one  side  the  universe  could  not  look  to  the  fur- 
thest star  on  the  other  side  and  say:  "  You  are  no  relation  to  me;"  for  from  that 
bright  orb  a  voice  of  light  would  ring  across  the  heavens  responding;  "  Yes,  yes;, 
we  are  sisters."  Sir  Sidney  Smith,  in  prison  was  playing  lawn-tennis  in  the  yard 
and  the  ball  flew  over  the  wall.     Another  ball  containing  letters  was  thrown  back> 


SUCCESS -BUSINESS  BEFORE  PLEASURE.— v4//f^r  a  Pai7itins^  by  Emanuel  Spitzer. 


(.^89) 


390 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


and  so  communication  was  opened  with  the  outside  world,  and  Sidney  Smith 
escaped  in  time  to  defeat  Bonaparte's  Egyptian  expedition.     What  a  small  acci- 


EXECUTION   OK   LOKD   HASTINGS. 


dent  connected  with  what  vast  result  !  Sir  Robert  Peel,  from  a  pattern  he  drew 
on  the  back  of  a  pewter  dinner-plate,  got  suggestions  of  that  which  led  to  the 
important  invention  by  which  calico  is  printed. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  391 

GOD'S  PLANS  BEYOND  OUR   COMPREHENSION. 

Nothing  in  God's  universe  swings  at  loose  ends.  Accidents  are  only  God's 
way  of  turning  a  leaf  in  the  book  of  His  eternal  decrees.  From  our  cradle  to  our 
grave  there  is  a  path  all  marked  out.  Each  event  in  our  life  is  connected  with 
every  other  event  in  our  life.  Our  loss  may  be  the  most  direct  road  to  our  gain. 
Our  defeats  and  victories  are  twin  brothers.  The  w'hole  direction  of  your  life  was 
changed  by  something  which  at  the  time  seemed  to  3'ou  a  trifle,  while  some  occur- 
rence w^hich  seemed  tremendous  affected  you  but  little.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Kennedy, 
of  Basking  Ridge,  New  Jersey,  went  into  his  pulpit  one  Sabbath,  and  by  a  strange 
freak  of  memory  forgot  his  subject  and  forgot  his  text,  and  in  great  embarrass- 
ment rose  before  his  audience  and  announced  the  circumstance  and  declared  him- 
self entirely  unable  to  preach;  then  launched  forth  in  a  few  earnest  words  of 
entreaty  and  warning,  which  resulted  in  the  outbreaking  of  the  mightiest  revival 
of  religion  ever  known  in  that  State,  a  revival  that  resulted  in  churches  still  stand- 
ing and  in  the  conversion  of  a  large  number  of  men  who  entered  the  gospel  ministry, 
who  have  brought  their  thousands  to  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Finall)^  learn  from  this  subject  that  in  ever>'  famine  there  is  a  storehouse. 
Up  the  long  row  of  buildings,  piled  to  the  very  roof  with  corn,  came  the  hungry 
multitudes,  and  Joseph  commanded  that  their  sacks  and  their  wagons  be  filled. 
The  world  has  been  blasted.  Every  green  thing  has  withered  under  the  touch  of 
sin.  From  all  continents,  and  islands,  and  zones  comes  up  the  groan  of  dying 
millions.  Over  tropical  spice-grove,  and  Siberian  ice  hut,  and  Hindoo  jungle  the 
blight  has  fallen.  The  famine  is  universal.  But,  glorj'  be  to  God,  there  is  a  great 
storehouse.  Jesus  Christ,  our  elder  brother,  this  day  bids  us  come  in  from  our 
hunger  and  beggary,  and  obtain  infinite  supplies  of  grace,  enough  to  make  us  rich 
forever.  Many  of  you  have  for  a  long  while  been  smitten  of  the  famine.  The 
world  has  not  stilled  the  throbbing  of  your  spirit.  Your  conscience  sometimes 
rouses  you  up  w^ith  such  suddenness  and  strength  that  it  requires  the  most  gigantic 
determination  to  quell  the  disturbance.  Your  courage  quakes  at  the  thought  of 
the  future.  Oh  !  why  will  you  tarrj^  amid  the  blastings  of  the  famine  when  such 
a  glorious  storehouse  is  open  in  God's  mercy  ? 


I^otr^l   33JiDrnt^ni7Cro3bf> 


ANGELS  OF  MERCY  THAT   FEED   THE   POOR,    COMFORT   IN   ADVERSITY  AND  SPREAD   THE 
BALM   OF  GRACE  OVER   BATTLE-FIELD  AND   HOSPITAL. 

^OLOMON,  by  one  stroke,  set  forth  the  imperial  character  of  a 
true  Christian  woman.  She  is  not  a  slave,  not  a  hireling, 
not  a  subordinate,  but  a  queen;  and  as  such,  Solomon  sees 
sixty  of  these  helping  to  make  up  the  roj^al  pageant  of 
Jesus.  In  a  previous  essay,  I  showed  you  that  crown, 
and  courtly  attendants,  and  imperial  wardrobe  were  not 
necessary  to  make  a  Queen;  but  that  graces  of  the  heart 
and  life  will  give  coronation  to  any  woman.  I  showed  you 
at  some  length  that  woman's  position  was  higher  in  the 
world  than  man's,  and  that  although  she  had  often  been  denied  the  right  of  suffrage, 
she  always  did  vote  and  always  would  vote  by  her  influence;  and  that  her  chief 
desire  ought  to  be  that  she  should  have  grace  rightly  to  rule  in  the  dominion  which 
she  has  already  won.  I  began  an  enumeration  of  some  of  her  rights,  and  in  this 
paper  I  resume  the  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  woman  has  the  special  and  superlative  right — not  again 
going  back  to  what  I  have  already  written — woman  has  the  special  and  superlative 
right  of  blessing  and  comforting  the  sick. 

What  land,  what  street,  what  house,  has  not  felt  the  smitings  of  disease? 
Tens  of  thousands  of  sick  beds  !  What  shall  we  do  with  them  ?  Shall  man,  with 
his  rough  hand  and  clumsy  foot,  go  stumbling  around  the  sick-room  trying  to 
soothe  the  distracted  nerves,  and  alleviate  the  pains  of  the  tossing  patient  ?  The 
young  man  at  college  may  scoff  at  the  idea  of  being  under  maternal  influences; 
but  at  the  first  blast  of  the  typhoid  fever  on  his  cheek,  he  says:  "Where  is 
mother?"     Walter  Scott  wrote  partly  in  satire  and  partly  in  compliment  when  he 

said: 

O  woman,  in  our  hours  of  ease. 
Uncertain,  coy  and  hard  to  please  ; 
When  pain  and  anguish  wring  the  brow, 
A  ministering  angel  thou. 

I  think  the  most  pathetic  passage  in  all  the  Bible  is  the  description  of  the  lad 
who  went  out  to  the  harvest  field  of  Shunem  and  got  sunstruck— throwing  his 

(392) 


THE  OUREN  OF  SYMPATHY.— Frow  the  Painting  by  Alexander  Cabonel. 


(393) 


394  I'HE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

hands  on  his  temples  and  crying  out:  "  Oli,  my  head  !  my  head  !"  and  they  said: 
"  Carry  him  to  his  mother,"  And  the  record  is:  "  He  .sat  on  her  knees  till  noon, 
and  then  died." 

THE  MINISTRIES  OF  HOME. 

it  is  an  awful  thing  to  be  ill  away  from  home  in  a  strange  hotel;  once  in  a 
while  men  coming  in  to  look  at  you,  holding  their  hand  over  their  mouth  for  fear 
they  will  catch  the  contagion.  How  roughly  they  turn  you  in  bed.  How  loudly 
they  talk.  How  you  long  for  ministries  of  home.  I  knew  one  such  who  went 
away  from  one  of  the  brightest  of  homes  for  several  weeks'  business  absence  at  the 
West.  A  telegram  came  at  midnight  that  he  was  on  his  death-bed,  far  awa)^  from 
home.  By  express  train  the  wife  and  daughter  went  westward,  but  they  were  too 
late.  He  feared  not  to  die,  but  he  was  in  an  agony  to  live  until  his  family  got  there. 
He  tried  to  bribe  the  doctors  to  make  him  live  a  little  while  longer.  He  said:  "  I 
am  willing  to  die,  but  not  alone."  But  the  pulses  fluttered,  the  eyes  closed  and 
the  heart  stopped.  The  express  trains  met  in  the  midnight;  wife  and  daughter 
going  westward — lifeless  remains  of  husband  and  father  coming  eastward.  Oh,  it 
was  a  sad,  pitiful,  overwhelming  spectacle  !  When  we  are  sick  we  want  to  be  sick 
at  home.  When  the  time  comes  for  us  to  die,  we  want  to  die  at  home.  The 
room  may  be  very  humble,  and  the  faces  that  look  into  ours  may  be  very  plain; 
but  who  cares  for  that  ?  Loving  hands  to  bathe  the  temples.  Loving  voices  to 
speak  good  cheer.  Loving  lips  to  read  the  comforting  promises  of  Jesus.  In  our 
last  dreadful  war  men  cast  the  cannon;  men  fashioned  the  musketry;  men  cried  to 
to  the  hosts:  "  Forward,  march  !"  men  hurled  their  battalions  on  the  sharp  edges 
of  the  enemy,  crying:  "Charge  !  charge  !"  but  woman  scraped  the  lint;  woman 
administered  the  cordials;  woman  watched  by  the  dying  couch;  woman  wrote  the 
last  message  to  the  home  circle;  woman  wept  at  the  solitary  burial  attended  by 
herself  and  four  men  with  a  spade. 

WOMAN'S  HEROISM. 

We  greeted  the  general  home  with  brass  bands,  and  triumphal  arches,  and 
wild  huzzas;  but  the  story  is  too  good  to  be  written  anywhere,  save  in  the 
chronicles  of  heaven,  of  Mrs.  Brady,  who  came  down  among  the  sick  in  the 
swamps  of  the  Chickahominy ;  of  Annie  Ross,  in  the  cooper-shop  hospital;  of 
Margaret  Breckinridge,  who  came  to  men  who  had  been  for  weeks  with  their 
wounds  undressed,  some  of  them  frozen  to  the  ground,  and  when  she  turned  them 
over,  those  that  had  an  arm  left  waved  it  and  filled  the  air  with  their  "  hurrah;" 
of  Mrs.  Hodge,  who  came  from  Chicago  with  blankets  and  with  pillows,  until  the 
men  shouted:  "  Three  cheers  for  the  Christian  Commission  !  God  bless  the  women 
at  home,"  then  sitting  down  to  take  the  last  message:  "  Tell  my  wife  not  to  fret 
about  me,  but  to  meet  me  in  heaven.     Tell  her  to  train  up  the  boys  whom  we 


THK  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


395 


have  loved  so  well.     Tell  her  we  shall  meet  again  in  the  good  land.     Tell  her  to 
bear  my  loss  like  the  Christian  wife  of  a  Christian  soldier;"  and  of  Mrs.  Shelton, 


A  FEAST   OP  CHERRIES. 


into  whose  face  the  convalescent  soldier  looked  and  said:    "Your  grapes  and 
cologne  cured  me. "     Men  did  their  work  with  shot,  and  shell,  and  carbine,  and 


396  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

howitzer.  Women  did  their  work  with  sock.s,  and  slippers,  and  bandages,  and 
warm  drinks,  and  vScripture  texts,  and  gentle  strokings  of  the  hot  temples,  and 
stories  of  that  land  where  the}-  never  have  any  pain.  Men  knelt  down  over  the 
wounded  and  said:  "  On  which  side  did  you  fight?"  Women  knelt  down  over 
the  wounded  and  said  :  "  Where  are  you  hurt?  What  nice  thing  can  I  make  for 
you  to  eat?  What  makes  you  cry?"  To-night,  while  men  are  sound  asleep  in 
their  beds,  there  will  be  a  light  in  yonder  loft;  there  will  be  groaning  down  that 
dark  alley;  there  will  be  cries  of  distress  in  that  cellar.  Men  will  sleep,  and 
women  will  watch. 

FRIENDS  OF  THE  POOR. 

Again,  woman  has  a  superlative  right  to  take  care  of  the  poor.  There  are 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  them  all  over  the  land.  There  is  a  kind  of  work  that 
men  cannot  do  for  the  poor.  Here  comes  a  group  of  little  barefoot  children  to  the 
door  of  the  Dorcas  Society.  They  need  to  be  clothed  and  provided  for.  Wliich 
of  these  directors  of  banks  would  know  how  many  j-ards  it  would  take  to  make 
that  little  girl  a  dress  ?  Which  of  these  masculine  hands  could  fit  a  hat  to  that 
little  girl's  head?  Which  of  the  wise  men  would  know  how  to  tie  on  that  new 
pair  of  shoes?  Man  sometimes  gives  his  charity  in  a  rough  way,  and  it  falls  like 
the  fruit  of  a  tree  in  the  East,  which  fruit  comes  down  so  heavily  that  it  breaks  the 
skull  of  the  man  who  is  trying  to  gather  it.  But  woman  glides  so  softly  into  the 
house  of  destitution,  and  finds  out  all  the  sorrows  of  the  place,  and  puts  so  quietly 
the  donation  on  the  table,  that  all  the  familj^  come  out  on  the  front  steps  as  she 
departs,  expecting  that  from  under  her  shawl  she  will  thrust  out  two  wings  and  go 
right  up  toward  heaven,  from  whence  she  seems  to  have  come  down,  O  Christian 
3'oung  woman  !  if  you  would  make  yourself  happy  and  win  the  blessing  of  Christ, 
go  out  among  the  destitute.  A  loaf  of  bread  or  a  bundle  of  socks  may  make  a 
homely  load  to  carry,  but  angels  of  God  will  come  out  to  watch,  and  the  Lord 
Almighty  will  give  his  messenger  hosts  a  charge,  saying:  "  Look  after  that  woman. 
Canopy  her  with  your  wings  and  shelter  her  from  all  harm;"  and  while  you  are 
seated  in  the  house  of  destitution  and  suffering,  the  little  ones  around  the  room 
will  whisper:  "Who  is  she?  Ain't  she  beautiful?"  and  if  you  will  listen  right 
sharply  you  will  hear  dripping  down  through  the  leaky  roof,  and  rolling  over  the 
rotten  stairs  the  angels'  chant  that  shook  Bethlehem: 

Glory  to  God  in  the  highest, 

And  on  earth  peace,  good  will  to  men. 

PROTECTED    BY    GOD. 

Can  5^ou  tell  me  why  a  Christian  woman  going  down  among  the  haunts  of 
iniquity  on  a  Christian  errand  never  meets  with  any  indignity  ?     I  stood  in  the 


LoNFlDEN'CE. 


(397) 


400  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

matter  ?' '  but  he  believes  it  a  sort  of  Christian  duty  to  keep  all  that  trouble  withirk 
his  own  soul.  Oh,  sir,  your  first  duty  was  to  tell  your  wife  all  about  it.  She,  perhaps, 
might  not  have  disentangled  you  finances  or  extended  your  credit,  but  she  would 
have  helped  you  to  bear  misfortune.  You  have  no  right  to  carry  on  one  shoulder 
that  which  is  intended  for  two.  There  came  a  crisis  in  your  affairs.  You  struggled 
bravely  and  long,  but  after  a  while  there  came  a  day  when  you  said:  "  Here  I 
shall  have  to  stop,"  and  3'ou  called  in  your  partners,  and  you  called  in  the  most 
prominent  men  in  your  employ,  and  you  said:  "  We  have  got  to  stop."  You  left 
the  store  suddenly.  You  could  hardly  make  up  your  mind  to  pass  through  the 
street  and  over  on  the  ferry-boat.  You  felt  everybody  would  be  looking  at  you, 
and  blaming  you,  and  denouncing  you.  You  hasten  home.  You  told  your  wife- 
all  about  the  affair.  What  did  she  say  ?  Did  she  play  the  butterfl}-  ?  Did  she 
talk  about  the  silks,  and  the  ribbons,  and  the  fashions  ?  No.  She  came  up  to  the 
emergency.  She  quailed  not  under  the  stroke.  She  helped  you  to  begin  to  plan 
right  away.  She  offered  to  go  out  of  the  comfortable  house  into  a  smaller  one,  and 
wear  the  old  cloak  another  winter.  She  was  one  who  understood  your  affairs  with- 
out blaming  you.  You  looked  upon  what  you  thought  was  a  thin,  weak  woman's 
arm  holding  you  up;  but  while  you  looked  at  that  arm  there  came  into  the  feeble 
muscles  of  it  the  strength  of  the  eternal  God.  No  chiding.  No  fretting.  No- 
telling  you  about  the  beautiful  house  of  her  father,  from  which  j-ou  brought  her, 
ten,  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago.  You  said:  "Well,  this  is  the  happiest  day  of 
my  life.      I  am  glad  I  have  got  from  under  my  burden.      My  wife  doesn't  care,  I 

don't  care." 

WOMAN'S  OPPORTUNITY. 

At  the  moment  you  were  utterly  exhausted  God  sent  a  Deborah  to  meet  the 
host  of  the  Amalekites  and  scatter  them  like  chaff  over  the  plain.  There  are 
sometimes  women  who  sit  reading  sentimental  novels,  and  who  wish  that  they  had 
some  grand  field  in  which  to  display  their  Christian  powers.  Oh,  what  grand  and 
glorious  things  they  could  do  if  they  only  had  an  opportunity  !  My  sister,  you 
need  not  wait  for  any  such  time.  A  crisis  will  come  in  3'our  affairs.  There  will 
be  a  Thermopylae  in  your  own  household  where  God  will  tell  you  to  stand.  There 
are  scores  and  hundreds  of  households  to-day  where  as  much  braver}^  and  courage 
are  demanded  of  women  as  was  exhibited  b}'  Grace  Darling,  or  Marie  Antoinette 
or  Joan  of  Arc. 

It  is  woman's  right  to  bring  to  us  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  It  is  easier  for  a 
woman  to  be  a  Christian  than  for  a  man.  Why?  You  say  she  is  weaker.  No.  Her 
heart  is  more  responsive  to  the  pleadings  of  divine  love.  She  is  in  vast  majority. 
The  fact  that  she  can  more  easily  become  a  Christian  I  prove  by  the  statement 
that  three-fourths  of  the  members  of  the  churches  in  all  Christendom  are  women. 
So  God  appoints  them  to  be  the  chief  agencies  for  bringing  this  world  back  to- 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


401 


Him.  I  may  say  the  soul  is  immortal.  There  is  a  man  who  will  refute  it.  I 
may  say  we  are  lost  and  undone,  without  Christ.  There  is  a  man  who  will 
refute  it.  I  say  there  will  be  a  judgment  day  after  a  wdiile.  Yonder  is  some  one 
who  will  refute  it.  But  a  Christian  woman  in  a  Christian  household,  living  in  the 
faith  and  the  consistency  of  Christ's  gospel -nobody  can  refute  that.  The  great- 
est sermons  are  not  preached  on  celebrated  platforms:  they  are  preached  with  an 
audience  of  two  or  three,  and  in  private  home  life.  A  consistent,  consecrated 
Christian  service  is  an  unanswerable  demonstration  of  God's  truth. 

Oh,  what  a  multitude  of  women  in   heaven  !       Mar>%    Christ's  mother,   in 
heaven;  Elizabeth  Fry  in  heaven;   Charlotte  Elizabeth  in  heaven;  the  mother  of 


WHERE   THE   WOODS   LIFT  THEIR   HEADS   IN   PRAISE. 

Augustine  in  heaven;  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon,  wdio  .sold  her  .splendid  jewels 
to  build  chapels,  in  heaven,  while  a  great  many  others  who  have  never  been 
heard  of  on  earth,  or  known  but  little,  have  gone  into  the  rest  and  peace  of  heaven. 


REST  IN   HEAVEN. 


What  a  rest  !  What  a  change  it  was  from  the  small  room,  with  no  fire  and 
one  window,  the  gla.ss  broken  out,  and  the  aching  side,  and  worn-out  eyes,  to  the 
"house  of  many  mansions  !  "  No  more  stitching  until  twelve  o'clock  at  night, 
no  more  thrusting  of  the  thumb  by  the  employer  through  the  work  to  show  it  was 


26 


402 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


not  done  quite  right.  Plenty  of  bread  at  last.  Heaven  for  aching  heads.  Heaven 
for  broken  hearts.  Heaven  for  anguish-bitten  frames.  No  more  sitting  up  until  mid- 
night for  the  coming  of  staggering  steps.  No  more  rough  blows  across  the  temple. 
No  more  sharp,  keen,  bitter  curses.  Some  of  you  will  have  no  rest  in  this  world. 
It  will  be  toil,  and  struggle,  and  suffering  all  the  way  up.  You  will  have  to 
stand  at  your  door  fighting  back  the  wolf  with  your  own  hand,  red  with  carnage. 
But  God  has  a  crown  for  you.  I  want  you  to  realize  that  He  is  now  making  it, 
and  whenever  you  weep  a  tear  He  sets  another  gem  in  that  crown,  until,  after  a 
while,  in  all  the  tiara  there  will  be  no  room  for  another  splendor,  and  God  will  say 
to  His  angel:  "The  crown  is  done:  let  her  up  that  she  may  wear  it."  And  as 
the  Lord  of  righteousness  puts  the  crown  upon  your  brow,  angel  will  cry  to  angel: 
"  Who  is  she?"  and  Christ  will  say:  "  I  will  tell  you  who  she  is.  She  is  the  one 
that  came  up  out  of  great  tribulation. ' ' 

And  then  God  will  spread  a  banquet,  and  He  will  invite  all  the  principalities 
of  heaven  to  sit  at  the  feast;  and  the  tables  will  blush  with  the  best  clusters  from 
the  vineyards  of  God,  and  crimson  with  the  twelve  manner  of  fruits  from  the  Tree 
of  Life;  and  waters  from  the  fountains  of  the  rock  will  flash  from  the  golden 
tankards;  and  the  old  harpers  of  heaven  will  sit  there,  making  music  with  their 
harps;  and  Christ  will  point  you  out,  amid  the  celebrities  of  heaven,  saying:  "  She 
suffered  with  Me  on  earth,  now  we  are  going  to  be  glorified  together. ' '  And  the 
banqueters,  no  longer  able  to  hold  their  peace,  will  break  forth  with  congratula- 
tion: "Hail!  hail!"  And  there  will  be  handwritings  on  the  wall — not  such  as 
struck  the  Persian  nobleman  with  horror — but  fire-tipped  fingers,  writing  in 
blazing  capitals  of  light,  and  love,  and  victory:  "  God  hath  wiped  away  all  tears 
from  all  faces  !" 


SFnTpliDfjinT^itt  xix  ^:etti;>jeiT* 


OCCUPATIONS  IN  THE  CELESTIAL  WORLD  NOT  DIFFERENT 
FROM  THOSE  ON   EARTH. 

ZKKIEIy,  with  others,  had  been  expatriated,  and  while  in 
foreign  slavery,  standing  on  the  banks  of  the  royal  canal 
which  he  and  other  serfs  had  been  condemned  to  dig  by 
the  order  of  Nebuchadnezzar — this  ro^-al  canal,  in  the 
Bible  called  the  river  of  Chebar,  the  illustrious  exile  had 
visions  of  heaven.  Indeed,  it  is  almost  alwaj'S  so  that 
the  brightest  visions  of  heaven  come  not  to  those  who 
are  on  mountain  top  of  prosperity,  but  to  some  John  on 
desolate  Patmos,  or  to  some  Paul  in  Mamertine  dungeon, 
or  to  some  Ezekiel  standing  on  the  banks  of  a  ditch  he 
had  been  compelled  to  dig — yea,  to  the  weary,  to  the 
heart-broken,  to  those  whom  sorrow  has  banished. 

The  Bible  is  very  particular  to  give  us  the  exact  time 

of  the  vision.      It  was  in  the  thirtieth  3'ear,    and  in  the 

fourth  month,   and  in  the  fifth  day  of  the  month.     So  you 

have    had  visions  of  earth  you   shall   never  forget.      You 

remember  the  year,   you  remember  the  month,  you  remember  the  day, 

j-ou  remember  the  hour. 

The  question  is  often  silently  asked,  though  perhaps  never  audibly 
propounded:  "What  are  our  departed  Christian  friends  doing  now?" 
The  question  is  more  easily  answered  than  you  might  perhaps  suppose.  Though 
there  has  come  no  recent  intelligence  from  the  heavenly  city,  and  we  seem 
dependent  upon  the  story  of  eighteen  centuries  ago,  still  I  think  we  may  from 
strongest  inference  decide  what  are  the  present  occupations  of  our  transferred 
kinsfolk. 

After  God  has  made  a  nature  He  never  eradicates  the  chief  characteristics  of 
its  temperament.  You  never  knew  a  man  phlegmatic  in  temperament  to  become 
sanguine  in  temperament.  You  never  knew  a  man  sanguine  in  temperament  to 
become  phlegmatic  in  temperament.  Conversion  plants  new  principles  in  the 
soul,  but  Paul  and  John  are  just  as  different  from  each  other  after  conversion  as 
they  were  different  from  each  other  before  conversion.     If  conversion  does  not 

(403) 


404 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I^IFE. 


eradicate  the  prominent  characteristics  of  the  temperament  neither  will  death  eradi- 
cate them. 

You  have,  then,  only  by  a  sum  in  subtraction  and  a  sum  in  addition  to  decide 
what  are  the  employments  of  your  departed  friends  in  the  better  world.  You  are 
to  subtract  from  them  all  earthly  grossness  and  add  all  earthly  goodness,  and  then 

you  are  to  come  to 
the  conclusion  that 
they  are  doing  now 
in  heaven  what  in 
their  best  moments 
they  did  on  earth. 
The  reason  that  so 
many  people  never 
start  for  heaven  is 
because  they  could 
not  stand  it  if  they 
got  there,  if  it  should 
turn  out  to  be  the 
rigid  and  formal 
place  some  pious 
people  photograph  it. 
We  like  to  go  to 
church,  but  w  e 
would  not  want  to 
stay  there  till  next 
Christmas.  W"e  like 
to  hear  the  Halle- 
lujah Chorus,  but 
we  would  not  want 
to  hear  it  all  the 
time  for  fifty  cen- 
turies. It  might  be 
on  some  great  occa- 
sion it  would  be  pos- 
sibly' comfortable  to- 
wear  a  crown  of  gold 
weighing     several 

THE   FI,OWER   GATHERER.  pOUuds,  but  it  WOUld 

be  an  affliction  to  wear  such  a  crown  forever.     In  other  words,  we  run  the  descrip- 
tions of  heaven  into  the  ground  while  we  make  that  which  was  intended   as 


THOSE  BivissFuiv  HOURS. — Ffom  an  Original  Drawing  by  Hermann  Koch. 


(405) 


4o6  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

especial  and  celebrative  to  be  the  exclusive  einployment  of  heaven.  You  might 
as  well,  if  asked  to  describe  the  habits  of  American  society,  describe  a  Decoration 
Day  or  a  Fourth  of  July,  or  an  autumnal  Thanksgiving,  as  though  it  were  all 
the  time  that  way. 

I  am  not  going  to  speculate  in  regard  to  the  future  world,  but  I  nuist,  by 
inevitable  laws  of  inference  and  deduction  and  common  sense,  conclude  that  in 
heaven  we  will  be  just  as  different  from  each  other  as  we  are  now  different,  and 
hence  there  will  be  at  least  as  many  different  employments  in  the  celestial  world  as 
there  are  employments  here.  Christ  is  to  be  the  great  love,  the  great  joy,  the 
great  rapture,  the  great  worship  of  heaven;  but  will  that  abolish  employment? 
No  more  than  loves  on  earth — paternal,  filial,  fraternal,  conjugal  love — abolish 
earthly  occupation. 

In  the  first  place,  I  remark  that  all  those  of  our  departed  Christian  friends 
who  on  earth  found  great  joy  in  the  fine  arts  are  now  indulging  their  tastes  in  the 
same  direction.  On  earth  they  had  their  gladdest  pleasure  amid  pictures  and 
statuary,  and  in  the  study  of  the  laws  of  light  and  shade  and  perspective.  Have 
you  any  idea  that  that  affluence  of  faculty  at  death  collapsed  and  perished  ?  Why 
so,  when  there  is  more  for  them  to  look  at,  and  they  have  keener  appreciation  of 
the  beautiful,  and  they  stand  amid  the  very  looms  where  the  sunsets  and  the  rain- 
bows and  the  spring  mornings  are  woven. 

Are  you  so  obtuse  as  to  suppose  that  because  the  painter  drops  his  easel,  and 
the  sculptor  his  chisel,  and  the  engraver  his  knife,  that  therefore  that  taste,  which 
he  was  enlarging  and  intensih'ing  for  forty  or  fifty  years,  is  entirely  obliterated  ? 
These  artists,  or  these  friends  of  art,  on  earth  worked  in  coarse  material  and  with 
imperfect  brain  and  with  frail  hand.  Now  they  have  carried  their  art  into  large 
liberties  and  into  wider  circumference.  They  are  at  their  old  business  yet,  but 
without  the  fatigues,  without  the  limitations,  without  the  hindrances  of  the 
terrestrial  studio. 

THE  CELESTIAL  ART  GALLERY. 

Raphael  could  now  improve  upon  his  masterpiece  of  Michael,  the  archangel, 
now  that  he  has  seen  him,  and  could  improve  upon  his  masterpiece  of  the  Holy 
Family,  now  that  he  has  visited  them.  Michael  Angelo  could  better  present  the 
Last  Judgment  after  he  has  seen  its  flash  and  heard  the  rumbling  battering-rams 
of  its  thunder.  Exquisite  colors  here,  graceful  lines  here,  powerful  chiaro-oscuro 
here;  but  I  am  persuaded  that  the  grander  studios  and  the  brighter  galleries  are 
higher  up  by  the  winding  marble  stairs  of  the  sepulchre,  and  that  Tunier  and 
Holman,  Hunt  and  Rembrandt,  and  Titian,  and  Paul  Veronese,  if  they  exercised 
saving  faith  in  the  Christ  whom  they  portrayed  upon  the  canvas,  are  painters  yet, 
but  their  strength  of  faculty  multiplied  ten  thousand-fold.     The  reason  that  God 


THE   HOLY  SIGN. 
It  1^  ^ai.I  that  when  Constatitine  was  opposing  the  Christian  religion  at  the  moment  of  engaging 
in  battle  with  his  brother-in-law,  Maxentius,  he  perceived  the  shadow  of  a  cross  in  the  sky  over 
which  were  written  the  words,  In  hoc  signo  vinces — "  With  this  sign  you  will  conquer."     He  gained 
the  battle  and  immediately  adopted  and  established  Christianity  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

(407) 


4o8  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

took  away  their  eye  and  their  hand,  and  their  brain  was  that  He  might  give  theta 
something  more  limber,  more  wieldly,  more  skillful,  more  multipliant. 

Do  not,  therefore,  be  melancholy  among  the  tapestries,  the  bric-a-brac,  and  the 
embroideries,  and  the  water-colors,  and  the  works  of  art  which  your  departed 
friends  used  to  admire.  Do  not  say:  "I  am  sorry  they  had  to  leave  all  these 
things."  Rather  sa}':  "I  am  glad  they  have  gone  up  to  higher  artistic  oppor- 
tunity and  appreciation."  Our  friends  who  found  so  much  joy  in  the  fine  arts  on 
earth  are  now  luxuriating  in  I^ouvres  and  I,uxembourgs  celestial. 

I  feel  sure  that  all  our  departed  Christian  friends  who  in  this  world  were 
passionately  fond  of  music  are  still  regaling  that  taste  in  the  world  celestial.  The 
Bible  says  so  much  about  the  music  of  heaven  that  it  cannot  all  be  figurative. 
The  Bible  over  and  over  again  speaks  of  the  songs  of  heaven.  If  heaven  had  no 
songs  of  its  own  a  vast  number  of  those  on  earth  would  have  been  taken  up  by 
the  earthly  emigrants.  Surely  the  Christian  at  death  does  not  lose  his  memory. 
Then  there  must  be  millions  of  souls  in  heaven  who  know  "Coronation,"  and 
"Antioch,"  and  "Mount  Pisgah,"  and  "Old  Hundred."  The  leader  of  the 
eternal  orchestra  need  only  once  tap  his  baton  and  all  heaven  will  be  read}-  for  the 
hallelujah. 

Cannot  the  soul  sing?  How  often  we  compliment  some  exquisite  singing  by 
saying:  "There  was  so  much  soul  in  her  music."  In  heaven  it  will  be  all  soul 
until  the  body  after  a  while  comes  up  in  the  resurrection,  and  then  there  will  be 
an  additional  heaven.  Cannot  the  soul  hear?  If  it  can  hear,  then  it  can  hear 
music.  Do  not,  therefore,  let  it  be  in  your  household  when  some  member 
leaves  for  heaven,  as  it  is  in  some  households,  that  3-ou  close  the  piano  and 
unstring  the  harp  for  two  years,  because  the  fingers  that  used  to  play  on  them 
are  still.  You  must  remember  that  they  have  better  instruments  of  music  where 
they  are. 

You  ask  me:  "  Do  they  have  real  harps,  and  real  trumpets,  and  real  organs  ?' ' 
I  do  not  know.  Some  wiseacres  say  positively  there  are  no  such  things  in  heaven. 
I  do  not  know,  but  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  the  God  who  made  all  the  moun- 
tains, and  all  the  hills,  and  all  the  forests,  and  all  the  metals  of  the  earth,  and  all 
the  growths  of  the  universe — I  should  not  be  surprised  if  He  could,  if  He  had  a 
mind  to,  make  a  few  harps  and  trumpets  and  organs. 

Grand  old  Haydn,  sick  and  worn  out,  was  carried  for  the  last  time  into  the 
music  hall,  and  there  he  heard  his  own  oratorio  of  the  "  Creation."  History  says 
that  as  the  orchestra  came  to  that  famous  passage,  "Let  there  be  Light!"  the 
whole  audience  rose  and  cheered,  and  Haydn  waved  his  hand  toward  heaven  and 
said:  "  It  came  from  there."  Overwhelmed  with  his  own  music,  he  was  carried 
out  in  his  chair,  and  as  he  came  to  the  door  he  spread  his  hand  toward  the  orches- 
tra as  in  benediction. 


THE  HARVEST  OF  THE  s-E;A.—J^rom  the  Painting  by  G.  Clausen. 


(409) 


4IO  THK  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Haydn  was  right  when  he  waved  liis  hand  toward  heaven  and  said:  "  It  comes 
from  there."  Music  was  born  in  heaven,  and  it  will  ever  have  its  highest  throne 
in  heaven;  and  I  want  you  to  understand  that  our  departed  friends  who  were 
passionately  fond  of  music  here  are  now  at  the  lieadquarters  of  harmony.  I  think 
that  the  grand  old  church  tunes  that  died  when  your  grandfathers  died  have  gone 
with  them  to  heaven. 

THE  CHURCH    MILITANT   IN   HEAVEN. 

I  believe  that  those  of  our  departed  Christian  friends  who,  in  this  world,  had 
very  strong  military  spirit  are  now  in  armies  celestial  and  out  on  bloodless  battle. 
There  are  hundreds  of  people  born  soldiers.  They  cannot  help  it.  They  belong 
to  regiments  in  time  of  peace.  They  cannot  hear  a  drum  or  fife  without  trying  to 
keep  step  to  the  music.  They  are  Christians,  and  when  they  fight  they  are  on  the 
right  side.  Now,  when  these,  our  Christian  friends,  who  had  natural  and  power- 
ful militarj^  spirit,  entered  heaven  they  entered  the  celestial  army. 

The  door  of  heaven  hardly  opens  but  you  hear  a  military  demonstration. 
David  cried  out:  "The  chariots  of  God  are  twenty  thousand."  Eli.sha  saw  the 
mountains  filled  with  celestial  cavalry-.  St.  John  said:  "  The  armies  which  are  in 
heaven  followed  him  on  white  horses."  Now,  when  those  who  had  the  military 
spirit  on  earth  sanctified  entered  glory,  I  suppose  they  right  away  enlisted  in  some 
heavenly  campaign;  the}^  volunteered  right  away.  There  must  needs  be  in  heaven 
soldiers  with  a  soldierly  spirit.  There  are  grand  parade  daj-s  when  the  King 
reviews  the  troops.  There  must  be  armed  escort  sent  out  to  bring  up  from  earth 
to  heaven  those  who  were  more  than  conquerors.  There  must  be  crusades  ever 
being  fitted  out  for  some  part  of  God's  dominions — battles,  bloodless,  groanless, 
painless.  Angels  of  evil  to  be  fought  down  and  fought  back.  Other  rebellious 
worlds  to  be  conquered.  Worlds  to  be  put  to  the  torch.  Worlds  to  be  saved. 
Worlds  to  be  demolished.     Worlds  to  be  sunk.     Worlds  to  be  hoisted. 

Besides  that,  in  our  own  world  there  are  battles  for  the  right  and  against  the 
wrong  where  we  must  have  the  heavenly  military.  That  is  what  keeps  us  Chris- 
tian reformers  so  buoyant.  So  few  good  men  against  so  many  bad  men,  so  few 
churches  against  so  many  grog  shops,  so  few  pure  printing  presses  against  so  many 
polluted  printing  presses;  and  yet  we  are  buoj-ant  and  coiirageous,  because  while 
we  know  that  the  armies  of  evil  in  the  world  are  larger  in  numbers  than  the  army 
of  the  truth,  there  are  celestial  cohorts  in  the  air  fighting  on  our  side. 

I  have  not  so  nuich  faith  in  the  army  on  the  ground  as  I  have  in  the  army  in 
the  air.  The  military  spirits  that  went  up  from  earth  to  join  the  military  spirits 
before  the  throne — Joshua,  and  Caleb,  and  Gideon,  and  l)a\id,  and  Samson,  and 
the  hinidreds  of  Christian  warriors  who  on  earth  fought  with  fleshly  arm,  and  now 
having  gone  up  on  high,  are  coming  down  the  hills  of  heaven  ready  to  fight  among 


J 


V    O    rj 


(411) 


412  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

the  invisibles.     Yonder  they  are — coming,  coming.     Did  you  not   hear  them  as 

they  swept  by  ? 

THE   MATHEMATICS   OF    HEAVEN. 

But  what  are  our  mathematical  friends  to  do  in  the  next  world  ?  They  found 
their  joy  and  their  delight  in  mathematics.  There  was  more  poetry  for  them  in 
Euclid  than  in  John  Milton.  They  were  as  passionately  fond  of  mathematics  as 
Plato,  who  wrote  over  his  door:  "  Let  no  one  enter  here  who  is  not  acquainted 
Avith  geometrj'."  What  are  they  doing  now?  They  are  busy  with  figures  yet. 
No  place  in  all  the  universe  like  heaven  for  figures.  Numbers  infinite,  distances 
infinite,  calculations  infinite.  The  didactic  Dr.  Dick  said  he  really  thought  that 
the  redeemed  in  heaven  spent  some  of  their  time  with  the  higher  branches  of 
mathematics. 

Some  of  our  transferred  and  transported  metaphysicians.  What  are  they 
doing  now?  Studying  the  human  mind,  only  under  better  circumstances  than 
they  used  to  study  it.  They  u.sed  to  study  the  mind  sheathed  in  the  dull  human 
body.  Now  the  spirit  is  unsheathed — now  they  are  studying  the  sword  outside 
the  scabbard.  Have  you  any  doubt  about  what  Sir  William  Hamilton  is  doing  in 
heaven,  or  what  Jonathan  Edwards  is  doing  in  heaven,  or  the  multitudes  on  earth 
Avho  had  a  passion  for  metaphj'sics  sanctified  by  the  grace  of  God  ?  No  difficulty 
in  guessing.     Metaphysics,  glorious  metaphysics,  everlasting  metaph5^sics. 

What  are  our  departed  Christian  friends  who  are  explorers  doing  now? 
Exploring  yet,  but  with  lightning  locomotion,  with  vision  microscopic  and  tele- 
scopic at  the  same  time.  A  continent  at  a  glance.  A  world  in  a  second.  A 
planetary  system  in  a  day.  Christian  John  Franklin  no  more  in  disabled  ' '  Erebus  ' ' 
pushing  toward  the  North  Pole,  Christian  De  Eong  no  more  trying  to  free  block- 
aded ' '  Jeannette  ' '  from  the  ice.  Christian  Livingstone  no  more  amid  African 
malarias  trying  to  make  revelation  of  a  dark  continent;  but  all  of  them  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  taking  in  that  which  was  unapproachable.  Mont  Blanc  scaled 
without  alpenstock.  The  coral  depths  of  the  ocean  explored  without  a  diving 
bell.  The  mountains  unbarred  and  opened  without  Sir  Humphrey  Davy's 
safety  lamp. 

What  are  our  departed  friends  who  found  their  chief  joy  in  study  doing  now  ? 
Studying  yet,  but  instead  of  a  few  thousand  volumes  on  a  few  shelves,  all  the  vol- 
umes of  the  universe  open  before  them — geologic,  ornithologic,  conchologic,  botanic, 
astronomic,  philosophic.  No  more  need  of  Ley  den-jars,  or  voltaic  piles, or  electric 
batteries,  standing  as  they  do  face  to  face  with  the  facts  of  the  universe. 

What  are  the  historians  doing  now  ?  Studying  history  yet,  but  not  the  his- 
tory of  a  few  centuries  of  our  planet  only,  but  the  history  of  the  eternities — whole 
millenniums  before  Xenophon,  or  Herodotus,  or  Moses,  or  Adam  was  born. 
History  of  one  world,  history  of  all  worlds. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  413 

ASTRONOMERS  AND   CHEMISTS    IN    CELESTIAL  INQUIRY. 

What  are  our  departed  astronomers  doing  ?  Studying  astronomy  yet,  but  not 
through  the  dull  lens  of  earthly  observatory,  but  with  one  stroke  of  wing  going 
right  out  to  Jupiter,  and  Mars,  and  Mercury,  and  Saturn,  and  Orion,  and  the- 
Pleiades — overtaking  and  passing  swiftest  comet  in  their  flight.  Herschel  died  a 
Christian.  Have  you  any  doubt  about  what  Herschel  is  doing  ?  Isaac  Newton 
died  a  Christian.  Have  you  any  doubt  about  what  Isaac  Newton  is  doing?' 
Joseph  Henry  died  a  Christian.  Have  you  any  doubt  about  what  Joseph  Henry 
is  doing?  They  were  in  discussion,  all  these  astronomers  of  earth,  about  what 
the  aurora  borealis  was,  and  none  of  them  could  guess.  They  know  now  ;  they 
have  been  out  there  to  see  for  themselves. 

What  are  our  departed  Christian  chemists  doing  ?  Following  out  their  own 
science,  following  out  and  following  out  forever.  Since  they  died  they  have 
solved  10,000  questions  which  once  puzzled  the  earthly  laboratory.  They  stand 
on  the  other  side  of  the  thin  wall  of  electricity,  the  wall  that  seems  to  divide  the 
physical  from  the  spiritual  world,  the  thin  wall  of  electricity,  so  thin  the  wall  that 
ever  and  anon  it  seems  to  be  almost  broken  through — broken  through  from  our 
side  by  telephonic  and  telegraphic  apparatus,  broken  through  from  the  other  side 
by  strange  influences  which  men  in  their  ignorance  call  spiritualistic  manifesta- 
tions. All  that  matter  cleared  up.  Agassiz  standing  amid  his  student  explorers 
down  in  Brazil  coming  across  sonie  great  novelty  in  the  rocks,  taking  off  his  hat 
and  saying:  "Gentlemen,  let  us  pray;  we  must  have  divine  illumination;  we 
want  wisdom  from  the  Creator  to  study  these  rocks;  He  made  them;  let  us  pray.'" 
Agassiz  going  right  on  with  his  studies  forever  and  forever. 

But  what  are  the  men  of  the  law,  who  in  this  world  found  their  chief  joy  in 
the  legal  profession — what  are  they  doing  now  ?  Studying  law  in  a  universe  where 
everything  is  controlled  by  law  from  flight  of  humming-bird  to  flight  of  world — 
law,  not  dry  and  hard  and  drudging,  but  righteous  and  magnificent  law,  before 
which  man,  and  cherub,  and  seraph,  and  archangel,  and  God  Himself  bow.  The 
chain  of  law  long  enough  to  wind  around  the  immensities  of  infinit}'  and  eternity. 
Chain  of  law.  What  a  place  to  study  law,  where  all  the  links  of  the  chain  are  in 
the  hand  ! 

What  are  our  departed  Christian  friends  who  in  this  world  had  their  joy  in 
the  healing  art,  doing  now  ?  Busy  at  their  old  business.  No  sickness  in  heaven, 
but  plenty  of  sickness  on  earth,  plenty  of  wounds  in  the  different  parts  of  God's 
dominion  to  be  healed  and  to  be  medicated.  You  cannot  understand  why  that 
patient  got  well  after  all  the  skillful  doctors  had  said  he  must  die.  Perhaps  Aber- 
crombie  touched  him — Abercrombie  who,  after  many  years'  doctoring  the  bodies 
and  the  souls  of  people  in  Scotland,  went  up  to  God  in  1844.  Perhaps  Aber- 
crombie touched  him. 


414  "THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

I  should  not  wonder  if  my  old  friend,  Dr.  John  Brown,  who  died  in  Edin- 
burgh— John  Brown,  the  author  of  "  Rab  and  His  Friends  " — ^John  Brown,  who 
was  as  humble  a  Christian  as  he  was  skillful  a  physician  and  world-renowned 
author — I  should  not  wonder  if  he  had  been  back  again  and  again  to  see  some  of 
his  old  patients.  Those  who  had  their  joy  in  healing  the  sickness  and  the  woes 
of  earth,  gone  up  to  heaven,  are  come  forth  again  for  benignant  medicament. 

But  what  are  our  friends  who  found  their  chief  joy  in  conversation  and  in 
sociality  doing  now  ?     In  brighter  conversation  there  and  in  grander  sociality. 

A  WONDERFUL  PLACE  TO  VISIT. 

What  a  place  to  visit  in,  where  your  next  door  neighbors  are  kings  and 
queens.  You  yourselves  kingly  and  queenly.  If  they  want  to  know  more  par- 
ticularly about  the  first  paradise,  they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  Adam.  If 
they  want  to  know  how  the  sun  and  the  moon  halted,  they  have  only  to  go  over 
and  ask  Joshua.  If  they  want  to  know  how  the  storm  pelted  Sodom,  they  have 
only  to  go  over  and  ask  Lot.  If  they  want  to  know  more  about  the  arrogance 
of  Haman,  they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  Mordecai.  If  they  want  to  know 
how  the  Red  Sea  boiled  when  it  was  cloven,  they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask 
Moses.  If  they  want  to  know  the  particulars  about  the  Bethlehem  advent,  they 
have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  the  serenading  angels  who  stood  that  Christmas 
night  in  the  balconies  of  crystal.  If  they  want  to  know  more  of  the  particulars 
of  the  crucifixion,  they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  those  who  were  personal 
spectators  while  the  mountains  crouched  and  the  heavens  got  black  in  the  face  at 
the  spectacle.  If  they  want  to  know  how  the  Huguenots  suffered  at  the  hands 
of  their  persecutors,  they  may  learn  the  story  from  thousands  who  were  victims 
of  Henry  II.  If  they  want  to  know  more  about  the  sufierings  of  the  Scotch 
Covenanters,  they  have  only  to  go  over  and  ask  Andrew  Melville.  If  they  want 
to  know  more  about  the  old-time  revivals,  they  have  onl}-  to  go  over  and  ask 
Whitefield,  and  Wesley,  and  L,ivingston,  and  Fletcher,  and  Nettleton,  and  Finney. 
Oh  !  what  a  place  to  visit  in. 

It  eternity  were  one  minute  shorter  it  would  not  be  long  enough  for  such 
sociality.  Think  of  our  friends  who  in  this  world  were  passionately  fond  of 
flowers,  turned  into  paradise  !  Think  of  our  friends  who  were  very  fond  of  raising 
superb  fruit,  turned  into  the  orchard  where  each  tree  has  twelve  kinds  of  fruit  at 
once,  and  bearing  fruit  all  the  year  round  ! 

What  are  our  departed  Christian  friends  doing  in  heaven,  those  who  on  earth 
found  their  chief  joy  in  the  gospel  ministry  ?  They  are  visiting  their  old  congre- 
gations. Most  of  those  ministers  have  got  their  people  around  them  already. 
When  I  get  to  heaven — if  by  the  grace  of  God,  as  I  hope,  I  am  destined  to  go  to 
that  place — I  will  come  and  see  you  all.     Yes,  I  will  come  to  all  the  people  to 


(415) 


41 6  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

whom  I  have  administered  in  the  gospel,  and  to  the  miUions  of  souls  to  whom, 
through  the  kindness  of  the  printing-press,  I  am  permitted  to  preach  every 
week  in  this  land,  and  in  other  lands — and  to  the  friends  who  find  pleasure,  and 
I  hope  profit,  in  "  The  Pathway  of  IvIFE."  I  will  visit  them  all.  I  give  them 
fair  notice.  Our  departed  friends  of  the  ministry  are  engaged  in  that  delectable 
entertainment  now. 

A  PLACE  OF  PERPETUAL  LABOR  OF   LOVE. 

But  what  are  our  departed  Christian  friends  who,  in  all  departments  of  use- 
fulness were  busy,  finding  their  chief  joy  in  doing  good — what  are  they  doing 
now  ?  Going  right  on  with  their  work.  John  Howard  visiting  dungeons;  the 
dead  women  of  Northern  and  Southern  battlefields  still  abroad  looking  for  the 
wounded;  George  Peabody  still  watching  the  poor;  Thomas  Clarkson  still  looking 
after  the  enslaved — all  of  those  who  did  good  on  earth  busier  since  death  than 
before. 

The  tombstone  not  the  terminus  but  the  starting  post.  What  are  our  departed 
Christian  friends  who  found  their  chief  joy  in  studying  God  doing  now  ?  Studying 
God  yet.  No  need  of  revelation  now,  for  unblanched  they  are  face  to  face.  Now 
they  can  handle  the  omnipotent  thunder-bolts  just  as  a  child  handles  the  sword 
of  a  father  come  back  from  victorious  battle.  They  have  no  sin,  no  fear  conse- 
quently. Studying  Christ,  not  through  a  revelation,  save  the  revelation  of  the 
scars,  that  deep  lettering  which  brings  it  all  up  quick  enough.  Studying  the 
Christ  of  the  Bethlehem  caravansary,  the  Christ  of  the  awful  massacre  with  its 
hemorrhage  of  head,  and  hand,  and  foot,  and  side — the  Christ  of  the  shattered 
mausoleum — Christ,  the  sacrifice,  the  star,  the  sun,  the  man. 

But  hark!  the  bell  of  the  cathedral  rings — the  cathedral  bell  of  heaven. 
What  is  the  matter  now  ?  There  is  going  to  be  a  great  meeting  in  the  temple. 
Worshipers  all  come  through  the  aisles.  Make  room  for  the  conqueror.  Christ 
standing  in  the  temple.  All  heaven  gathering  around  Him.  Those  who  loved 
music  come  to  listen  to  His  voice.  Those  who  were  mathematicians  come  to  count 
the  years  of  His  reign.  Those  who  were  explorers  come  to  discover  the  height 
and  the  depth,  and  the  length  and  the  breadth  of  His  love.  Those  who  had  the 
military  spirit  on  earth  sanctified,  and  the  military  spirit  in  heaven,  come  to  look 
at  the  Captain  of  their  salvation.  The  astronomers  come  to  look  at  the  Morning 
Star.  The  men  of  the  law  come  to  look  at  Him  who  is  the  Judge  of  quick  and 
dead.  The  men  who  healed  the  sick  come  to  look  at  Him  who  was  wounded  for 
our  transgressions. 

A  DREAM   OF  HEAVEN. 

One  twilight,  after  I  had  been  playing  with  the  children  for  some  time,  I  laj' 
down  on  the  lounge  to  re.st.     The  children  said,  "Play  more."     Children  always 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  417 

want  to  play  more.  And,  half  asleep  and  half  awake,  I  seemed  to  dream  this 
dream:  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  in  a  far-distant  land — not  Persia,  although 
more  than  Oriental  luxuriance  crowned  the  cities;  nor  the  tropics — although  more 
than  tropical  fruitfulness  filled  the  gardens;  nor  Italy — although  more  than  Italian 
softness  filled  the  air.  And  I  wandered  around,  looking  for  thorns  and  nettles, 
but  I  found  none  of  them  grew  there.  And  I  walked  forth  and  I  saw  the  sun 
rise,  and  I  said:  "When  will  it  set  again?"  and  the  sun  sank  not.  And  I  saw 
all  the  people  in  holiday  apparel,  and  I  said:  "When  will  they  put  on  working- 
man's  garb  again,  and  delve  in  the  mine,  and  swelter  at  the  forge  ?' '  But  neither 
the  garments  nor  the  robes  did  they  put  off.  And  I  wandered  in  the  suburbs,  and 
said:  "  Where  do  they  bury  the  dead  of  this  great  city  ?"  and  I  looked  along  by 
the  hills  where  it  would  be  most  beautiful  for  the  dead  to  sleep,  and  I  saw  castles, 
and  towns,  and  battlements;  but  not  a  mausoleum,  nor  monument,  nor  white  slab 
could  I  see.  And  I  went  into  the  great  chapel  of  the  town,  and  I  said:  "Where 
do  the  poor  worship?  where  are  the  benches  on  which  they  sit?"  and  a  voice 
answered:  "  We  have  no  poor  in  this  great  city."  And  I  wandered  out,  seeking 
to  find  the  place  where  were  the  hovels  of  the  destitute;  and  I  found  mansions  of 
amber,  and  ivory,  and  gold,  but  no  tear  did  I  see  or  sigh  hear.  I  was  bewildered; 
and  I  sat  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  tree,  and  I  said:  "  What  am  I,  and  whence 
comes  all  this  ?"  And  at  that  moment  there  came  from  among  the  leaves,  skipping; 
up  the  flowery  paths  and  across  the  sparkling  waters,  a  very  bright  and  sparkling^ 
group;  and  when  I  saw  their  step  I  knew  it,  and  when  I  heard  their  voices  I 
thought  I  knew  them;  but  their  apparel  was  so  diiferent  from  anything  I  had  ever 
seen,  I  bowed,  a  stranger  to  strangers.  But  after  a  while,  when  they  clapped  their 
hands  and  shouted:  "  Welcome  !  Welcome  !"  the  mystery  was  solved,  and  I  saw 
that  time  had  passed,  and  that  eternity  had  come,  and  that  God  had  gathered  us 
up  into  a  higher  home;  and  I  said:  "  Are  we  all  here?"  and  the  voices  of  innu- 
merable generations  answered:  "All  here;"  and  while  tears  of  gladness  were 
raining  down  our  cheeks,  and  the  branches  of  the  Lebanon  cedars  were  clapping 
their  hands  and  the  towers  of  the  great  city  were  chiming  their  welcome,  we 
began  to  laugh,  and  sing,  and  leap,  and  shout:    "  Home  !  Home  !  Home  !" 

Then  I  felt  a  child's  hand  on  my  face,  and  it  woke  me.     The  children  wanted 
to  play  more.     Children  always  want  to  play  more. 


^'^^^^ 


27 


51cluotcrn3 


WITCHCRAFTS,   ORACLES,   AND    FOOLISH    DEVICES  TO   DELUDE 
THE  CREDULOUS. 

H£)RE  are  two  modes  of  divination  by  which  the  king 
of  Babylon  proposed  to  find  out  the  will  of  God.  He 
took  a  bundle  of  arrows,  put  them  together,  mixed  them 
up,  then  pulled  forth  one,  and  by  the  inscription  on  it 
decided  what  city  he  should  first  assault.  Then  an 
animal  was  slain,  and  by  the  lighter  or  darker  color  of 
the  liver,  the  brighter  or  darker  prospect  of  success  was 
inferred. 

Stupid  delusion  !  And  yet  all  the  ages  have  been 
filled  with  delusions.  It  .seems  as  if  the  world  loves  to 
be  hoodwinked.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  la.st  century, 
Johanna  Southcote  came  forth,  pretending  to  have  divine  power,  made  prophecies, 
had  chapels  built  in  her  honor,  and  100,000  disciples  came  forth  to  follow  her. 
About  five  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  Apollonius  was  bom,  and  he  came  forth, 
and  after  five  years,  being  speechless,  according  to  the  tradition,  he  healed  the  sick 
and  raised  the  dead,  and  preached  virtue,  and,  according  to  the  myth,  having 
deceased,  was  brought  to  resurrection  ! 

ORACLES  AND  SIBYLS. 

The  Delphic  Oracle  deceived  vast  nuiltitudes  of  people;  the  Pythoness,  seated 
in  the  Temple  of  Apollo,  uttered  a  crazy  jargon  from  which  the  people  guessed 
their  individual  or  national  fortunes  or  misfortunes.  The  utterances  were  of  such 
a  nature  that  you  could  read  them  any  way  you  wanted  to  read  them.  A  general 
going  forth  to  battle  consulted  the  Delphic  Oracle,  and  he  wanted  to  find  out 
^vhether  he  was  going  to  be  safe  in  the  battle  or  killed  in  the  battle,  and  the  answer 
•came  forth  from  the  Delphic  Oracle  in  such  words  that  if  you  put  the  comma  before 
the  word  "  never,"  it  means  one  thing,  and  if  you  put  the  comma  after  the  word 
"never,"  it  means  another  thing  just  opposite.  The  mc.s.sagc  from  the  Delphic 
Oracle  to  the  general  was:  "Go  forth,  retuni  never  in  battle  shalt  thou  perish." 

If  he  was  killed,  that  was  according  to  the  Delphic  Oracle;  if  he  came  home 
safely,  that  was  according  to  the  Delphic  Oracle.    So  the  ancient  auguries  deceived 

(4  IS) 


ii 


lliPi:^r»' 


(419) 


|2o  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

the  people.  The  priests  of  those  auguries,  by  the  flight  of  birds,  or  by  the  intona- 
tion of  thunder,  or  by  the  inside  appearance  of  slain  animals,  told  the  fortunes  or 
misfortunes  of  individuals  or  nations.  The  sibyls  deceived  the  people.  The  sibyls 
were  supposed  to  be  inspired  women,  who  lived  in  caves,  and  who  wrote  the  sibyl- 
line books  afterward  purchased  by  Tarquin  the  Proud.  So  late  as  the  year  1829, 
a  man  arose  in  New  York,  pretending  to  be  a  divine  being,  and  playing  his  part 
so  well  that  wealthy  merchants  became  his  disciples  and  threw  their  fortunes  into 
his  discipleship.  And  so,  in  all  ages,  there  have  been  necromancies,  incantations, 
witchcrafts,  sorceries,  magical  arts,  enchantments,  divinations,  and  delusions. 
None  of  these  d(,'lusions  accomplished  any  good.  They  deceived,  they  pauperized 
the  people.  They  were  as  cruel  as  they  were  absurd.  They  opened  no  hospitals, 
they  healed  no  wounds,  they  wiped  away  no  tears,  they  emancipated  no  serfdom. 

IS  CHRISTIANITY  SIMPLY  A  DELUSION  ? 

But  there  are  those  who  say  that  all  these  delusions  combined  are  as  nothing 
compared  with  the  delusion  now  abroad  in  the  world — the  delusion  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  That  delusion  has  to-day  200,000,000  dupes.  It  proposes  to 
encircle  the  earth  with  its  girdle.  That  which  has  been  called  a  delusion  has 
already  overshadowed  the  Appalachian  range  on  this  side  the  sea,  and  it  has 
overshadowed  the  Balkan  and  Caucasian  ranges  on  the  other  side  the  sea.  It  has 
conquered  England  and  the  United  States.  This  champion  delusion,  this  hoax, 
this  swindle  of  the  ages,  as  it  has  been  called,  has  gone  forth  to  conquer  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific;  the  Melanasia,  and  the  Micronesia,  and  Malayan  Polynesia 
have  already  surrendered  to  the  delusion.  Yes,  it  has  conquered  the  Indian 
Archipelago,  and  Borneo,  and  Sumatra,  and  Celebes,  and  Java  have  fallen  under 
its  wiles.  In  the  Fiji  Islands,  where  there  are  120,000  people,  102,000  have 
already  become  the  dupes  of  this  Christian  religion,  and,  if  things  go  on  as  they 
are  now  going  on,  and  if  the  influence  of  this  great  hallucination  of  the  ages 
cannot  be  stopped,  it  will  swallow  the  globe. 

Admiral  Farragut,  one  of  the  most  admired  men  of  the  American  navy, 
early  became  a  victim  of  this  Christian  delusion,  and,  seated,  not  long  before  his 
death,  at  Long  Branch,  he  was  giving  some  friends  an  account  of  his  early  life. 
He  said:  "  My  father  went  down  in  behalf  of  the  United  States  Government,  to 
put  an  end  to  Aaron  Burr's  rebellion,  I  was  a  cabin  boy  and  went  along  with 
him.  I  could  swear  like  an  old  salt.  I  could  gamble  in  every  style  of  gambling. 
I  knew  all  the  wickedness  there  was  at  that  time  abroad.  One  day  my  father 
cleared  everybody  out  of  the  cabin  except  myself  and  locked  the  door.  He 
said: 

"  '  David,  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?     What  are  you  going  to  be?' 

"  '  Well,'  I  said,  '  father,  I  am  going  to  follow  the  sea.' 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  421 

"  '  Follow  the  sea  !  and  be  a  poor,  miserable,  drunken  sailor,  kicked  and 
cuffed  about  the  world,  and  die  of  a  fever  in  a  foreign  hospital  ?' 

"  '  Oh  !  no,'  I  said,  '  father,  I  will  not  be  that;  I  will  tread  the  quarter-deck 
and  command,  as  you  do.' 

"  '  No,  David,'  my  father  said;  'no,  David,  a  person  that  has  your  princi- 
ples and  your  bad  habits  will  never  tread  the  quarter-deck  or  command. ' 

"  My  father  went  out  and  shut  the  door  after  him,  and  I  said  then:   '  I  will 

change;  I  will  never  swear  again;  I  will  never  drink  again;  I  will  never  gamble 

again;'  and  gentlemen,  by  the  help  of  God  I  have  kept  those  three  vows  to  this 

time.     I  soon  after  that  became  a  Christian,  and  that  decided  my  fate  for  time 

and  for  eternity. ' ' 

SWAYING  NOBLE  INTELLECTS. 

Ah  !  that  is  the  remarkable  thing  about  this  delusion  of  Christianity;  it  over- 
powers the  strongest  intellects.  Gather  the  critics,  secular  and  religious,  of  this 
century  together,  and  put  a  vote  to  them  as  to  which  is  the  greatest  book  ever 
written,  and  by  large  majority  they  will  say  ' '  Paradise  lyost. ' '  Who  wrote  '  'Para- 
dise Lost?"  One  of  the  fools  who  believed  in  this  Bible,  John  Milton.  Benjamin 
Franklin  surrendered  to  this  delusion,  if  you  may  judge  from  the  letter  that  he 
wrote  to  Thomas  Paine,  begging  him  to  destroy  the  "  Age  of  Reason  "  in  manu- 
script and  never  let  it  go  into  type,  and  writing  afterward,  in  his  own  days:  '  Of 
this  Jesus  of  Nazareth  I  have  to  say  that  the  system  of  morals  He  left,  and  the 
religion  He  has  given  us,  are  the  best  things  the  world  has  ever  seen  or  is  likely 
to  see."  Patrick  Henry,  the  electric  champion  of  liberty,  enslaved  by  this  delu- 
sion, so  that  he  says:  "The  book,  worth  all  other  books  put  together  is  the 
Bible."  Benjamin  Rush,  the  leading  physiologist  and  anatomist  of  his  day,  the 
great  medical  scientist — what  did  he  say  ?  ' '  The  only  true  and  perfect  religion  is 
Christianity."  Isaac  Newton,  the  leading  philosopher  of  his  time — what  did  he 
say  ?  That  man  surrendering  to  this  delusion  of  the  Christian  religion  crying 
out:  "The  sublimest  philosophy  on  earth  is  the  philosophy  of  the  gospel." 
David  Brewster,  at  the  pronunciation  of  whose  name  everj^  scientist  the  world 
over  bows  his  head,  David  Brewster  saying:  "  Oh,  this  religion  has  been  a  great 
light  to  me,  a  very  great  light  all  my  days."  President  Thiers,  the  great  French 
statesman,  acknowledging  that  he  prayed  when  he  said:  "  I  invoke  the  Lord  God, 
in  whom  I  am  glad  to  believe."  David  Livingstone,  able  to  conquer  the  lion,  able 
to  conquer  the  panther,  able  to  conquer  the  savage,  yet  conquered  by  this  delusion, 
this  hallucination,  this  great  swindle  of  the  ages,  so  when  they  find  him  dead 
they  find  him  on  his  knees.  William  E.  Gladstone,  the  strongest  intellect  in 
England  to-day,  unable  to  resist  this  chimera,  this  fallacy,  this  delusion  of  the 
Christian  religion,  goes  to  the  house  of  God  every  Sabbath,  and  often,  at  the 
invitation  of  the  rector,   reads  the  prayers  to  the  people.     Oh,  if  those  mighty 


422  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

< 

intellects  are  overborne  by  this  delusion,  what  chance  is  there  for  you  and  for  me  ? 

Yea,  this  awful  chimera  of  the  gospel  comes  to  the  poor,  and  it  says  to  them: 
"  You  are  on  your  way  to  vast  estates  and  to  dividends  always  declarable." 

This  delusion  or  Christianity  comes  to  the  bereft,  and  it  talks  of  re-union 
before  the  throne,  and  of  the  cessation  of  all  sorrow.  And  then  to  show  that 
this  delusion  will  stop  at  absolutely  nothing,  it  goes  to  the  dying  bed  and  fills  the 
■  man  with  anticipations.  How  much  better  it  would  be  to  have  him  die  without 
any  more  hope  than  swine  and  rats  and  snakes.  That  is  all.  Nothing  more  left 
of  him.  He  will  never  know  anything  again.  Shovel  him  under  !  The  soul  is 
only  a  superior  part  of  the  body,  and  when  the  body  disintegrates  the  soul  dis- 
integrates. Annihilation,  vacancy,  everlasting  blank,  obliteration.  .  Why  not 
present  all  that  beautiful  doctrine  to  the  djang,  instead  of  coming  with  this  hoax, 
this  swindle  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  filling  the  dying  man  with  anticipa- 
tions of  another  life,  until  some  in  the  last  hour  have  clapped  their  hands,  and 
some  have  shouted,  and  some  have  sung,  and  some  have  been  so  overwrought 
with  joy  they  could  only  look  ecstatic.  Palace  gates  opening,  they  thought; 
diamonded  coronets  flashing,  hands  beckoning,  orchestras  sounding.  Little 
children  dying,  actually  believing  they  saw  their  departed  parents,  so  that, 
although  the  little  children  had  been  so  weak  and  feeble  and  sick  for  weeks,  they 
could  not  turn  on  their  dying  pillow,  at  the  last,  in  a  paroxysm  of  rapture 
uncontrollable,  they  sprang  to  their  feet  and  shouted  :   "  Mother,  catch  me,  I  am 

coming  ! ' ' 

A  SUSTAINING  BELIEF. 

And  to  show  the  immensity  of  this  delusion,  this  awful  swindle  of  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ,  I  open  a  hospital  and  I  bring  into  that  hospital  the  death-beds  of 
a  great  many  Christian  people,  and  I  take  you  by  the  hand  and  I  walk  up  and 
down  the  wards  of  that  hospital  and  I  ask  a  few  questions.     I  ask: 

Dying  Stephen,  what  have  you  to  say  ?     "  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit." 

Dying  John  Wesley,  what  have  you  to  say?  "The  best  of  all  is,  God  is 
with  us. ' ' 

Dying  Edward  Payson,  what  have  you  to  say  ?    "I  float  in  the  sea  of  glory." 

Dying  John  Bradford,  what  have  you  to  say?  "If  there  be  any  way  of 
going  to  heaven  on  horseback,  or  in  a  fiery  chariot,  it  is  this." 

Dying  Neander,  what  have  you  to  say?  "  I  am  going  to  sleep  now — good- 
night." 

Dying  Mrs.  Florence  Foster,  what  have  you  to  say?  "  A  pilgrim  in  the 
valley,  but  the  mountain  tops  are  all  agleam  from  peak  to  peak." 

Dying  Alexander  Mather,  what  have  you  to  say  ?  ' '  The  Lord  who  has 
taken  care  of  me  fifty  years,  will  not  cast  me  off"  now;  glory  be  to  God  and  to  the 
Lamb  !     Amen,  Amen,  Amen,  Amen  !" 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  423 

Dying  John  Powson,  after  preaching  the  gospel  so  many  years,  what  have 
you  to  say  ?     "  My  death-bed  is  a  bed  of  roses." 

Dying  Dr.  Thomas  Scott,  what  have  you  to  say?     "This  is  heaven  begun." 

Dying  soldier  in  the  last  war,  what  have  you  to  say  ?  ' '  Boys,  I  am  going  to 
the  front." 

Dying  telegraph  operator  on  the  battlefield  of  Virginia,  what  have  you  to 
say?  "  The  wires  are  all  laid,  and  the  poles  are  up  from  Stony  Point  to  head- 
quarters. ' ' 

Dying  Paul,  what  have  you  to  say  ?  "I  am  now  ready  to  be  offered,  and  the 
time  of  my  departure  is  at  hand.  I  have  fought  the  good  fight;  I  have  finished 
my  course;  I  have  kept  the  faith."  "O  death,  where  is  thy  sting?  O  grave, 
where  is  thy  victory  ?  Thanks  be  unto  God,  who  giveth  us  the  victor}^  through 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. ' ' 

O  my  Lord,  my  God,  what  a  delusion,  what  a  glorious  delusion  !  Submerge 
me  with  it ;  fill  my  eyes  and  ears  with  it ;  put  it  under  my  dying  head  for  a 
pillow — this  delusion — spread  it  over  me  for  a  canopy;  put  it  underneath  me  for 
an  outspread  wing;  roll  it  over  me  in  ocean's  surges  ten  thousand  fathoms  deep  ! 

In  an  experience  meeting,  a  gentleman,  not  long  ago,  arose  and  spoke  as 
follows:  "On  my  way  here  to  night  I  met  a  man  who  asked  me  where  I  was 
going,  I  said:  'I  am  going  to  praj^er  meeting.'  He  said:  'There  are  a  good 
many  religions,  and  I  think  most  of  them  are  delusions;  as  to  the  Christian  reli- 
gion, that  is  only  a  notion;  that  is  a  mere  notion,  the  Christian  religion.'  I  said 
to  him:  'Stranger,  you  see  that  tavern  over  there?'  'Yes,'  he  said,  'I  see  it.' 
'  Do  you  see  me?'  'Yes,  of  course,  I  see  you.'  '  Now,  the  time  was,  as  every- 
body in  this  town  knows,  that  if  I  had  a  quarter  of  a  dollar  in  my  pocket  I  could 
not  pass  that  tavern  without  going  in  and  getting  a  drink;  all  the  people  of 
Jefferson  cculd  not  keep  me  out  of  that  place;  but  God  has  changed  my  heart, 
and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  destroyed  my  thirst  for  strong  drink,  and  there  is 
m)'  whole  week's  wages,  and  I  have  no  temptation  to  go  in  there;  and,  stranger, 
if  this  is  a  notion,  I  want  to  tell  you  it  is  a  mighty  powerful  notion;  it  is  a  notion 
that  has  put  clothes  on  my  children's  back,  and  it  is  a  notion  that  has  put  good 
food  on  our  table,  and  it  is  a  notion  that  has  filled  my  mouth  with  thanksgiving 
to  God.  And,  stranger,  you  had  better  go  along  with  me,  you  might  get  religion, 
too;  lots  of  people  are  getting  religion  now.'  " 

But  despite  all  these  practical  benefits  of  belief  there  are  those  who  make 
answer:  "  Give  me  the  world's  dollars  and  you  may  have  the  eternal  rewards. 
Give  me  the  world's  applause  and  you  may  have  the  garlands  of  God.  Give  me 
twenty,  or  forty,  or  sixty  years  of  worldly  successes,  and  I  don't  care  what 
becomes  of  the  future.  I  am  going  into  that  world  uninsured.  I  take  the 
responsibility.     Don't  bother  me  about  your  religion.      Here  I  have  the  two 


424 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


worlds  before  me — this  one  and  the  next.     I  have  chosen  this. 
me,  God  and  angels,  and  all  thoughts  of  the  future  !" 

SOME  RICH   FOOLS. 


Go  away  from 


But  where  is  Croesus,  and  Cleopatra,  and  ^sopus,  who  had  one  dish  of  food 
that  cost  $1,400,000;  and  Lentulus,  who  had  a  pond  of  fish  worth  $175,000;  and 
Scaurus,  who  bought  a  country  seat  for  $29,000,000;  and  Tiberius,  who  left  at 
death  a  fortune  of  $118,120,000?  "Where  are  they?  If  a  windy  day  should 
blow  all  the  dust  that  is  left  of  them  into  j^our  eyes  it  would  not  make  you  wink 
twice.  Ah,  my  readers,  then  very  certainly  your  comforts  of  surrounc'^'ng  cannot 
keep  back  the  old  archer.  You  cannot  charm  him  with  music,  or  dazzle  him  with 
plate,  or  decoy  him  with  pictures,  or  bribe  him  with  your  money. 

Well,  we  will  soon  understand  it  all.  Your  life  and  mine  will  soon  be  over. 
We  will  soon  come  to  the  last  bar  of  the  music,  to  the  last  act  of  the  tragedy,  to 
the  last  page  of  the  book — yea,  to  the  last  line  and  to  the  last  word,  and  to  you 
and  to  me  it  will  either  be  midnoon  or  midnight. 


GOOD   FATHER  AND   MOTHER,   WHAT   SHALL  YOUR  CHILDREN   READ? 

AUIv  once  stirred  up  Epliesus  with  some  lively  sermons  about  the  sins 
of  that  place.  Among  the  most  important  results  was  the  fact 
that  the  citizens  brought  out  their  bad  books  and  in  a  public  place 
made  a  bonfire  of  them.  I  see  the  people  coming  out  with  their 
arms  full  of  Ephesian  literature,  and  tossing  it  into  the  flames, 
I  hear  an  economist  standing  by  and  saying:  "Stop  this  waste. 
Here  are  $7500  worth  of  books — do  you  propose  to  burn  them  all 
up?  If  you  don't  want  to  read  them  yourself  sell  them  and  let  somebody  else 
read  them." 

' '  No, ' '  said  the  people,  ' '  if  these  books  are  not  good  for  us,  they  are  not 
good  for  anybody  else,  and  we  shall  stand  and  watch  until  the  last  leaf  has  turned 
to  ashes.  They  have  done  us  a  world  of  harm,  and  they  shall  never  do  others 
harm. ' ' 

Hear  the  flames  crackle  and  roar.  My  readers,  one  of  the  wants  of  the  cities 
of  this  country  iS  a  great  bonfire  of  bad  books  and  newspapers.  We  have  enough 
fuel  to  make  a  blaze  200  feet  high.  Many  of  the  publishing  houses  would  do  well 
to  throw  into  the  blaze  their  entire  stock  of  goods.  Bring  forth  the  insufferable 
trash  and  put  it  into  the  fire,  and  let  it  be  known  in  the  presence  of  God,  and 
angels,  and  men,  that  you  are  going  to  rid  your  homes  of  the  overtopping  and 
underlying  curse  of  profligate  literature. 

The  printing-press  is  the  mightiest  agency  on  earth  for  good  and  for  evil. 
The  minister  of  the  gospel,  standing  in  a  pulpit,  has  a  responsible  position;  but  I 
do  not  think  it  is  as  responsible  as  the  position  of  an  editor  or  a  publisher.  At 
what  distant  point  of  time,  at  what  far-out  cycle  of  eternity,  will  cease  the  influ- 
ence of  a  Henry  J.  Raymond,  or  a  Horace  Greeley,  or  a  James  Gordon  Bennett, 
or  a  Watson  Webb,  or  an  Erastus  Brooks,  or  a  Thomas  Kinsella?  Take  the 
simple  statistic  that  our  New  York  dailies  now  have  a  circulation  of  about 
850,000  per  day,  and  add  to  it  the  fact  that  three  of  our  weekly  periodicals  have 
an  aggregate  circulation  of  about  1,000,000,  and  then  cipher,  if  you  can,  how  far 
up,  and  how  far  down,  and  how  far  out,  reach  the  influences  of  the  American 
printing-press. 

(425) 


426  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

POWER  FOR  GOOD  OR  EVIL. 

Great  God  !  what  is  to  be  the  issue  of  all  this  ?  I  believe  the  Lord  intends 
the  printing-press  to  be  the  chief  means  for  the  world's  rescue  and  evangelization, 
and  I  think  that  the  great  last  battle  of  the  world  will  not  be  fought  with  swords 
and  guns,  but  with  types  and  presses — a  purified  and  gospel  literature  triumphing 
over,  trampling  down,  and  crushing  out  forever  that  which  is  depraved.  The 
only  way  to  overcome  unclean  literature  is  by  scattering  abroad  that  which  is 
healthful.  May  God  speed  the  cylinders  of  an  honest,  intelligent,  aggressive, 
Christian  printing-press. 

I  have  to  tell  you  that  the  greatest  blessing  that  ever  came  to  this  nation  is 
that  of  an  elevated  literature,  and  the  greatest  scourge  has  been  that  of  unclean 
literature.  This  last  has  its  victims  in  all  occupations  and  departments.  It  has 
helped  to  fill  insane  asylums,  and  penitentiaries,  and  almshouses,  and  dens  of 
shame.  The  bodies  of  this  infection  lie  in  the  hospitals  and  in  the  graves,  while 
their  souls  are  being  tossed  over  into  a  lost  eternity,  an  avalanche  of  horror  and 
despair. 

The  London  plague  was  nothing  to  it.  That  counted  its  victims  by  thou- 
sands, but  this  modern  pest  has  already  shoveled  its  millions  into  the  charnel- 
house  of  the  morally  dead.  The  longest  rail-train  that  ever  ran  over  the  Erie  or 
Hudson  tracks  is  not  long  enough  nor  large  enough  to  carry  the  beastliness  and 
the  putrefaction  which  have  been  gathered  up  in  bad  books  and  newspapers  of  this 
land  in  the  last  twenty  years. 

Now,  it  is  amid  such  circumstances  that  I  put  a  question  of  overmastering 
importance  to  j^ou  and  your  families.  What  books  and  newspapers  shall  we  read  ? 
You  see  I  group  them  together.  A  newspaper  is  only  a  book  in  a  swifter  and 
more  portable  shape,  and  the  same  rules  which  will  apply  to  book  reading  will 
apply  to  newspaper  reading.  What  shall  we  read  ?  Shall  our  minds  be  the 
receptacle  of  everything  that  an  author  has  a  mind  to  write  ?  Shall  there  be  no 
distinction  between  the  tree  of  life  and  the  tree  of  death  ?  Shall  we  stoop  down 
and  drink  out  of  the  trough  which  the  wickedness  of  men  has  filled  with  pollu- 
tion and  shame  ?  Shall  we  mire  in  impurity  and  chase  fantastic  Will-o'  -the-wisps 
across  the  swamps,  when  we  might  walk  in  the  blooming  gardens  of  God?  Oh, 
no  !  For  the  sake  of  our  present  and  everlasting  welfare  we  must  make  an  intelli- 
gent and  Christian  choice. 

BOOKS  THAT  ARE  GOOD. 

Standing,  as  we  do,  chin-deep  in  fictitious  literature,  the  first  question  that 
many  of  the  young  people  are  asking  me  is:  "  Shall  we  read  novels?"  I  reply: 
There  are  novels  that  are  pure,  good.  Christian,  elevating  to  the  heart,  and 
ennobling  to  the  life.     But  I  have  still  further  to  say  that  I  believe  that  ninety-nine 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 


427 


out  of  the  hundred  novels  in  this  day  are  baleful  and  destructive  in  the.  last 
degree.  A  pure  work  of  fiction  is  history  and  poetry  combined.  It  is  a  history 
of  things  around  us,  with  the  licenses  and  the  assumed  names  of  poetry.  The 
world  can  never  pay  the  debt  which  it  owes  to  such  fictitious  writers  as  Hawthorne 


piiipw^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 


THE  WAYWARD  DAUGHTER.— Frow  the  Paiuting  by  H.  Hehnick. 

and  McKenzie,  and  Landor  and  Hunt,  and  Arthur  and  Marion  Harland,  and 
others  whose  names  are  familiar  to  all.  The  follies  of  high  life  were  never  better 
exposed  than  by  Miss  Edgeworth.  The  memories  of  the  past  were  never  more 
faithfully  embalmed  than  in  the  writings  of  Walter  Scott.      Cooper's  novels  are 


428  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

healthfully  redolent  with  the  breath  of  the  seaweed,  and  the  air  of  the  American 
forest.  Charles  Kingsley  has  smitten  the  morbidity  of  the  world,  and  led  a  great 
many  to  appreciate  the  poetry  of  sound  health,  strong  muscles,  and  fresh  air. 
Thackeray  did  a  grand  work  in  caricaturing  the  pretenders  to  gentility  and  high 
blood.  Dickens  has  built  his  own  monument  in  his  books,  which  are  an  everlast- 
ing plea  for  the  poor,  and  the  anathema  of  injustice. 

Now,  I  say,  books  like  these,  read  at  right  times,  and  read  in  right  propor- 
tion with  other  books,  cannot  help  but  be  ennobling  and  purifying;  but  alas  for 
the  loathsome  and  impure  literature  that  has  come  upon  this  country  in  the  shape 
of  novels,  like  a  freshet  overflowing  all  the  banks  of  decency  and  common  sense  ! 
They  are  coming  from  some  of  the  most  celebrated  publishing  houses  of  the 
■country.  They  are  coming  with  recommendation  of  some  of  our  religious  news- 
papers. They  lie  on  your  centre-table  to  curse  your  children,  and  blast  with  their 
infernal  fires  generations  unborn.  You  find  these  books  in  the  desk  of  the  school 
miss,  in  the  trunk  of  the  young  man,  in  the  steamboat  cabin,  on  the  table  of  the 
hotel  reception  room.  You  see  a  light  in  your  child's  room  late  at  night.  You 
suddenly  go  in  and  say: 

"  What  are  you  doing?" 

' '  I  am  reading. ' ' 

"  What  are  you  reading  ?' ' 

"A  book." 

You  look  at  the  book;  it  is  a  bad  book. 

' '  Where  did  you  get  it  ?" 

"  I  borrowed  it." 

Alas,  there  are  always  those   abroad  who  would    like  to  loan  your  son  or 

-daughter  a  bad  book.     Everywhere,  everywhere  an  unclean  literature.     I  charge 

upon  it  the  destruction  of  ten  thousand  immortal  souls,  and  I  bid  you  wake  up  to 

the  magnitude  of  the  theme.     I  shall  take  all  the  world's  literature — good  novels 

and  bad,  travels  true  and  false,  histories  faithful  and  incorrect,  legends  beautiful 

and  monstrous,  all  tracts,  all  chronicles,  all  epilogues,   all  family,  city.  State  and 

national  libraries — and  pile  them  up  in  a  pyramid  of  literature,  and  then  I  shall 

hring  to  bear  upon   it  some  grand,    glorious,    infallible,   unmistakable  Christian 

principles. 

MORAL  AND   PHYSICAL  EFFECT. 

I  charge  you,  in  the  first  place,  to  stand  aloof  from  all  books  that  give  false 
pictures  of  human  life.  lyife  is  neither  a  tragedy  nor  a  farce.  Men  are  not  all 
■either  knaves  or  heroes.  Women  are  neither  angels  nor  furies.  And  yet  if  you 
■depended  upon  much  of  the  literature  of  the  day,  you  would  get  the  idea  that 
life,  instead  of  being  something  earnest,  something  practical,  is  a  fitful  and  fantas- 
tic and  extravagant  thing.     How  poorly  prepared  are  that  young  man  and  woman 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE.  429 

for  the  duties  of  to-day  who  spent  last  night  wading  through  brilliant  passages- 
descriptive  of  magnificent  knavery  and  wickedness  !  The  man  will  be  looking  all 
day  long  for  his  heroine,  in  the  tin-shop,  by  the  forge,  in  the  factory,  in  the 
counting-room,  and  he  will  not  find  her,  and  he  will  be  dissatisfied.  A  man  who 
gives  himself  up  to  the  indiscriminate  reading  of  novels  will  be  nerveless,  insane 
and  a  nuisance.  He  will  be  fit  neither  for  the  store,  nor  the  shop,  nor  the  field. 
He  will  always  be  looking  out  for  some  monster  of  fable,  like  Polyphemus,  who 
fed  on  human  flesh,  or  a  fairy  looking  for  a  proper  subject  for  her  munificence. 

A  woman  who  gives  herself  up  to  the  indiscriminate  reading  of  novels  will  be 
unfitted  for  the  duties  of  wife,  mother,  sister,  daughter.  There  she  is,  hair  dis- 
heveled, countenance  vacant,  cheeks  pale,  hands  trembling,  bursting  into  tears  at 
midnight  over  the  fate  of  some  unfortunate  lover;  in  the  daytime  when  she  ought 
to  be  busy,  staring  by  the  half  hour  at  nothing,  biting  her  finger  nails  into  the 
quick.  The  carpet  that  was  plain  before  will  be  plainer  after  having  wandered 
through  a  romance  all  night  long  in  tessellated  halls  of  castles.  And  your  indus- 
trious companion  will  be  more  unattractive  than  ever  now  that  3'ou  have  walked 
in  the  romance  through  parks  with  plumed  princesses,  or  lounged  in  the  arbor 
with  the  polished  desperado.  Oh,  these  confirmed  novel  readers  !  They  are 
unfitted  for  this  life,  which  is  a  tremendous  discipline.  They  know  not  how  tO' 
go  through  the  furnaces  of  trial  through  which  they  must  pass,  and  they  are  un- 
fitted for  a  world  where  everything  we  gain  we  achieve  by  hard,  long-continuing, 
and  exhaustive  work. 

Again,  abstain  from  all  those  books  which,  while  they  have  some  good  things- 
about  them,  have  also  an  admixture  of  evil.  The  heart  of  most  people  is  like  a 
sieve,  which  lets  the  small  particles  of  gold  fall  through,  but  keeps  the  great 
cinders.  Once  in  a  while  there  is  a  mind  like  a  loadstone,  which,  plunged  amid 
steel  and  brass  filings,  gathers  up  the  steel  and  repels  the  brass.  But  it  is  gen- 
erally just  the  opposite.  If  you  attempt  to  plunge  through  a  fence  of  burrs  to  get 
one  blackberry,  you  will  get  more  burrs  than  blackberries.  You  say:  "  The- 
influence  is  insignificant." 

I  tell  you  that  the  scratch  of  a  pin  has  sometimes  produced  the  lock-jaw.  Alas, 
if  through  curiosity,  as  many  do,  you  pry  into  an  evil  book,  your  curiosity  is  as 
dangerous  as  that  of  the  man  who  would  take  a  torch  into  a  gunpowder  mill 
merely  to  see  whether  it  would  really  blow  up  or  not. 

TORN   BY  A  LEOPARD. 

In  a  menagerie  in  New  York  a  man  put  his  arm  through  the  bars  of  a  black 
leopard's  cage.  The  animal's  hide  looked  so  sleek,  and  bright,  and  beautiful. 
He  just  stroked  it  once.  The  monster  seized  him,  and  he  drew  forth  a  hand  torn, 
and  mangled,  and  bleeding.     Oh,  touch  not  evil,  even  with  the  faintest  stroke  I 


430  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Though  it  may  be  glossy  and  beautiful,  touch  it  not,  lest  you  pull  forth  your  soul 
torn  and  bleeding  under  the  clutch  of  the  black  leopard. 

"  But,"  you  say,  "  how  can  I  find  out  whether  a  book  is  good  or  bad  without 
reading  it  ?' ' 

There  is  always  something  suspicious  about  a  bad  book.  I  never  knew  an 
exception — something  suspicious  in  the  index  or  style  of  illustration.  This  venom- 
ous reptile  almost  always  carries  a  warning  rattle. 

I  charge  you  to  stand  off  from  all  those  books  which  corrupt  the  imagination 
and  inflame  the  passions.  I  do  not  refer  now  to  that  kind  of  a  book  which  the 
villain  has  under  his  coat  waiting  for  the  school  to  get  out,  and  then,  looking  both 
ways  to  see  that  there  is  no  policeman  around  the  block,  offers  the  book  to  your 
son  on  his  way  home.  I  do  not  speak  of  that  kind  of  literature,  but  that  which 
evades  the  law  and  comes  out  in  polished  style,  and  with  acute  plot  sounds  the 
tocsin  that  rouses  up  all  the  baser  passion  of  the  soul.  To-day,  under  the  nostrils 
of  this  land,  there  is  a  fetid,  reeking,  unwashed  literature,  enough  to  poison  all 
the  fountains  of  public  virtue,  and  smite  your  sons  and  daughters  as  with  the  wing 
of  a  destroying  angel,  and  it  is  time  that  the  ministers  of  the  gospel  blew  the 
trumpet  and  rallied  the  forces  of  righteousness,  all  armed  to  the  teeth,  in  this 
great  battle  against  a  depraved  literature. 

Abstain  from  those  books  which  are  apologetic  of  crime.  It  is  a  sad  thing 
that  some  of  the  best  and  most  beautiful  book-binderies,  and  some  of  the  finest 
rhetoric,  have  been  brought  to  make  sin  attractive.  Vice  is  a  horrible  thing,  any- 
how. It  is  born  in  shame,  and  dies  howling  in  the  darkness.  In  this  world  it  is 
scourged  with  a  whip  of  scorpions,  but  afterwards  the  thunders  of  God's  wrath 
pursue  it  across  a  boundless  desert,  beating  it  with  ruin  and  woe.  When  you  come 
to  paint  carnality,  do  not  paint  it  as  looking  from  behind  embroidered  curtains,  or 
through  lattice  of  royal  seraglio,  but  as  writhing  in  the  agonies  of  a  city  hospital. 

A  TERRIBLE  CURSE. 

Cursed  be  the  books  that  try  to  make  impurity  decent,  and  crime  attractive, 
and  hypocrisy  noble  !  Cursed  be  the  books  that  swarm  with  libertines  and  des- 
peradoes, who  make  the  brain  of  the  young  people  whirl  with  villainy.  Ye  authors 
who  write  them,  ye  publishers  who  print  them,  ye  booksellers  who  distribute  them, 
shall  be  cut  to  pieces,  if  not  by  an  aroused  community,  then  at  last,  by  the  hand 
of  divine  vengeance,  which  shall  sweep  to  the  lowest  pit  of  perdition  all  you  mur- 
derers of  souls.  I  tell  you,  though  you  may  escape  in  this  world,  5^ou  will  be 
ground  at  last  under  the  hoof  of  eternal  calamities,  and  you  will  be  chained  to  the 
rock,  and  you  will  have  the  vultures  of  despair  clawing  at  your  soul,  and  those 
whom  you  have  destroyed  will  come  around  to  torment  you,  and  to  pour  hotter 
coals  of  fury  upon  your  head,  and  rejoice  eternally  in  the  outcry  of  your  pain  and 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


431 


the  liowl  of  your  damnation.  ' '  God  shall  wound  the  hairy  scalp  of  him  that  goeth 
on  in  his  trespasses. ' ' 

The  clock  strikes  midnight.  A  fair  form  bends  over  a  romance.  The  eyes 
flash  fire.  The  breath  is  quick  and  irregular.  Occasionally  the  color  dashes  to 
the  cheek,  and  then  dies  out.  The  hands  tremble  as  though  a  guardian  spirit  were 
trying  to  shake  the  deadly  book  out  of  the  grasp.  Hot  tears  fall.  She  laughs 
with  a  shrill  voice  that  drops  dead  at  its  own  sound.  The  sweat  on  her  brow  is 
the  spray  dashed  up  from  the  river  of  death.  The  clock  strikes  "  four,"  and  the 
rosy  dawn  soon  after  begins  to  look  through  the  lattice  upon  the  pale  form  that 
looks  like  a  detained  spectre  of  the  night.  Soon  in  a  mad-house  she  will  mistake 
her  ringlets  for  curling  serpents,  and  thrust  her  white  hand  through  the  bars  of  the 
prison,  and  smite  her  head,  rubbing  it  back  as  though  to  push  the  scalp  from  the 
skull,  shrieking:   "  My  brain  !      My  brain  !" 

Oh,  stand  off  from  that  !  Why  will  you  go  sounding  your  way  amid  the 
reefs  and  warning  buoys,  when  there  is  such  a  vast  ocean  in  which  you  may  voy- 
age, all  sail  set  ? 

Cherish  good  books  and  newspapers.  Beware  of  the  bad  ones.  One  column 
may  save  your  soul;  one  paragraph  may  ruin  it,  Benjamin  Franklin  said  that  the 
reading  of  Cotton  Mather's  essay  on  "Doing  Good"  moulded  his  entire  life. 
The  assassin  of  Lord  Russell  declared  that  he  was  led  into  crime  by  reading  one 
vivid  romance.  The  consecrated  John  Angell  James,  than  whom  England  never 
produced  a  better  man,  declared  in  his  old  days  that  he  had  never  yet  got  over  the 
evil  effects  of  having  for  fifteen  minutes  once  read  a  bad  book.  If  there  is  any- 
thing in  your  home  that  cannot  stand  the  test,  do  not  give  it  away,  for  it  might 
spoil  an  immortal  soul ;  do  not  sell  it,  for  the  money  you  get  would  be  the  price  of 
blood;  but  rather  kindle  a  fire  on  your  kitchen  hearth,  or  in  your  back  yard,  and 
then  drop  the  poison  into  it,  and  keep  stirring  the  blaze  until  from  preface  to 
appendix  there  shall  not  be  a  single  paragraph  left,  and  the  bonfire  shall  be  as 
consuming  as  that  one  in  the  streets  of  Ephesus. 


pill^r^si  iCft  Sntjcrlije^ 


SYMBOLISM   OF  MARTYRDOM,   OF  PEACEFUL  PURSUIT  AND  A  BURNING  WORLD. 

SONDROUS  is  the  architecture  of  the  smoke,  whether  God 
with  His  finger  curls  it  into  a  cloud,  or  rounds  it  into  a 
dome,  or  points  it  in  a  spire,  or  spreads  it  in  a  wing,  or, 
as  Solomon  says,  ' '  hoists  it  in  a  pillar. ' '  Watch  it  winding 
up  from  the  country  farm-house  in  the  early  morning, 
showing  that  the  pastoral  industries  have  begun;  or  see  it 
ascending  from  the  chimneys  of  the  city,  telling  of  the 
homes  fed,  the  factories  turning  out  valuable  fabric,  the  printing- 
presses  preparing  book  and  newspaper,  and  all  the  ten  thousand 
wheels  in  motion.  On  a  clear  day  this  vapor  spoken  of  mounts 
with  such  buoyancy  and  spreads  such  a  delicate  veil  across  the 
sky,  and  traces  such  graceful  lines  of  circle  and  semicircle,  and 
waves,  and  tosses,  and  sinks,  and  soars,  and  scatters  with  such 
afl&uence  of  shape,  and  color,  and  suggestiveness,  that  if  you  have 
never  noticed  it  you  are  like  a  man  who  has  all  his  life  lived  in 
Paris  and  yet  never  saw  the  I^uxembourg,  and  all  his  life  in 
Rome  and  never  saw  the  Vatican,  and  all  his  life  at  Lockport  and 
never  saw  Niagara.  Forty-four  times  the  Bible  speaks  of  the  smoke,  this  strange, 
weird,  beautiful,  elastic,  charming,  terrific  and  fascinating  vapor.  Across  the 
Bible  sky  floats  the  smoke  of  Sinai,  the  smoke  of  Sodom,  the  smoke  of  Ai,  the 
smoke  of  the  pit,  the  smoke  of  the  volcanic  hills  when  God  touches  them,  to 
symbolize  the  glorious  Church  of  God  coming  up  out  of  the  wilderness. 


MARTYRDOMS  AND   PERSECUTIONS. 

Pillars  of  smoke  may  be  likened  to  the  suffering  the  Church  of  God  has 
endured.  What  do  I  mean  by  the  Church  ?  I  mean  not  a  building,  not  a  sect, 
but  those  who  in  all  ages  and  all  lands,  and  of  all  beliefs,  love  God  and  are  trjnng 
to  do  right.  For  centuries  the  heavens  have  been  black  with  the  smoke  of  martyr- 
dom. If  set  side  by  side  you  could  girdle  the  earth  with  the  fires  of  persecution. 
Rowland  Taylor  burned  at  Hadleigh;  Latimer  burned  at  Oxford;  John  Rogers 

(432) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  433 

burned  at  Smithfield;  John  Hooper  burned  at  Gloucester;  John  Huss  burned  at 
Constance;  Lawrence  Saunders,  burned  at  Coventry;  Joan  of  Arc,  burned  at 
Rouen.  Protestants  have  sometimes  pointed  at  Catholics  as  persecutors,  but  both 
Protestant  and  Catholic  have  practiced  infamous  cruelties.  The  Catholics  during 
the  reign  of  Hunneric  were  by  Protestants  put  to  the  worst  tortures,  stripped  of 
their  clothing,  hoisted  in  the  air  by  pulleys  with  weights  suspended  from  their 
feet,  then  let  down,  and  ears  and  eyes,  nose  and  tongue,  were  amputated,  and  red- 
hot  plates  of  iron  were  put  against  the  most  tender  part  of  their  bodies. 

George  Bancroft,  the  historian,  says  of  the  State  of  Mar3dand:  "  In  the  land 
which  Catholics  had  opened  to  Protestants,  mass  might  not  be  said  publicly;  no 
Catholic  priest  or  bishop  might  utter  his  faith  in  a  voice  of  persuasion;  no  Catholic 
might  teach  the  j^oung.  If  a  wayward  child  of  a  Papist  would  but  become  an 
apostate,  the  law  wrested  for  him  from  his  parents  a  share  of  their  property.  Such 
were  the  methods  adopted  to  prevent  the  growth  of  Popery." 

Speaking  of  Ireland,  Bancroft,  the  historian  says:  "  Such  priests  as  were  per- 
mitted to  reside  in  Ireland  were  required  to  be  registered,  and  w^ere  kept  like 
prisoners  at  large  within  prescribed  limits.  All  Papists  exercising  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction,  all  monks,  friars  and  regular  priests,  and  all  priests  not  then  actually 
in  parishes  and  to  be  registered,  were  banished  from  Ireland  under  pain  of  trans- 
portation and,  on  return,  of  being  hanged,  drawn  and  quartered." 

OTHER  PERSECUTIONS. 

Catholicism  as  well  as  Protestantism  has  had  its  martyrs.  It  does  seem  as  if 
when  any  one  sect  got  complete  dominancy  in  any  land  the  devil  of  persecution 
and  cruelt)^  took  possession  of  that  sect.  Then  see  the  Catholics  after  the  Hugue- 
nots. See  the  Gentiles  after  the  Jews  in  Touraine,  where  a  great  pit  was  dug  and 
fire  lighted  at  the  bottom  of  the  pit,  and  160  Jewish  victims  were  consumed.  See 
the  Presbyterian  Parliament  of  England,  more  tyrannical  in  their  treatment  of 
opponents  than  had  been  the  criminal  courts.  Persecution  against  the  Baptists  by 
Pedobaptists.  Persecution  of  the  Established  Church  against  the  Methodist 
Church.  Persecution  against  the  Quakers.  Persecution  against  the  Presbyterians. 
Under  Emperor  Diocletian  144,000  Christians  were  massacred,  and  700,000  more  of 
them  died  from  banishment  and  exposure.  Witness  the  sufferings  of  the  Waldenses, 
of  the  Albigenses,  of  the  Nestorians.  Witness  St.  Bartholomew's  massacre. 
Witness  the  Duke  of  Alva  driving  out  of  life  18,000  Christians.  Witness  Herod, 
and  Nero,  and  Decius,  and  Hildebrand,  and  Torquemada,  and  Earl  of  Montfort, 
and  Lord  Claverhouse,  who  when  told  that  he  must  give  account  for  his  cruelties, 
said:  "  I  have  no  need  to  account  to  man,  and  as  for  God  I  will  take  Him  in  my 
own  hands."  A  red  line  runs  through  the  Church  history  of  1900  years,  a  line 
of  blood.  Not  by  the  hundreds  of  thousands,  but  by  the  millions  must  we  count 
28 


434  I'HK  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

those  slain  for  Christ's  sake.      No  wonder  John  Milton  put  the  groans  of  the 
martyrs  to  an  immortal  tune,  writing: 

"  Avenge,  O  Lord,  Thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold." 

Look  at  the  St.  Pauls,  St,  Peters,  St.  Eulalias,  and  the  millions  of  righteous 
and  courageous  souls  that  have  died  by  the  flame,  the  bludgeon,  the  lion  and  the 
cross.  The  smoke  of  martyrs'  homes  and  martyrs'  bodies  if  rolling  up  all  at  once 
would  have  eclipsed  the  noonday  sun  and  turned  the  brightest  day  the  world  ever 
saw  into  a  midnight.     "  Who  is  this  that  cometh  out  of  the  wilderness  like  pillars 

of  smoke  ?' ' 

HAS  PERSECUTION  CEASED? 

Has  persecution  ceased?  Ask  that  young  man  who  is  trjnng  to  be  a  Christian 
in  a  store  or  factory  where  from  morning  to  night  he  is  the  butt  of  all  the  mean 
witticisms  of  unbelieving  employes.  Ask  that  wife  whose  husband  makes  her 
fondness  for  the  house  of  God,  and  even  her  kneeling  prayer  by  the  bedside,  a 
derision,  and  is  no  more  fit  for  her  holy  companionship  than  a  filthy  crow  would 
be  fit  companion  for  a  robin  or  a  golden  oriole.  Compromise  with  the  world  and 
surrender  to  its  conventionalities  and  it  may  let  you  alone,  but  all  who  will  live 
godly  in  Christ  Jesus  must  suffer  persecution.  Be  a  theatre-going,  card-pla3-ing, 
wine-drinking,  round-dancing  Christian,  and  you  may  escape  criticism  and  social 
pressure.  But  be  an  up-and-down,  out-and-out  follower  of  Christ,  and  worldling 
will  wink  to  worldling  as  he  speaks  your  name,  and  you  will  be  put  in  many  a 
doggerel  and  snubbed  by  those  not  worthy  to  blacken  your  oldest  shoes.  When 
the  bridge  at  Ashtabula  broke  and  let  down  the  most  of  the  carload  of  passengers 
to  instant  death,  Mr.  P.  P.  Bliss  was  seated  on  one  side  of  the  aisle  of  the  car 
writing  down  a  Christian  song  which  he  was  composing,  and  on  the  other  side  a 
group  of  men  were  playing  cards.  Whose  landing-place  in  eternity  would  you 
prefer — that  of  P.  P.  Bliss,  the  gospel  singer,  or  of  the  players  ? 

A  great  complaint  comes  from  the  theatres  about  the  ladies'  high  hats  because 
they  obstruct  the  view  of  the  stage,  and  a  lady  reporter  asked  me  the  other  day 
what  I  thought  about  it,  and  I  told  her  that  if  the  indecent  pictures  of  actresses 
in  the  show-windows  of  Brooklyn  and  New  York  were  accurate  pictures  of  what 
goes  on  in  many  of  the  theatres  night  after  night,  then  it  would  be  well  if  the 
ladies'  hats  were  a  mile  high  so  as  to  completely  obstruct  the  vision.  If  professed 
Christians  go  to  such  places  during  the  week,  no  one  will  ever  persecute  them  for 
their  religion,  for  they  have  none  and  they  are  the  joke  of  hell.  But  let  them 
live  a  consecrated  and  Christian  life  and  they  will  soon  run  against  sneering 
opposition.  For  a  compromise  Christian  character  an  easy  time  now,  but  for  con- 
secrated behavior,  grimace  and  caricature.     For  the  body,  thanks  to  the  God  of 


BAD   NEWS   FROM   THE  SEA. 


(435) 


436  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

free  America,  there  are  now  no  swords  or  fiery  stakes,  but  for  the  souls  of  thou- 
sands of  the  good,  in  a  figurative  sense,  rack  and  gibbet  and  Torquemada.  The 
symbol  of  the  domestic,  and  social,  and  private,  and  public  suffering  of  a  great 
multitude  of  God's  dear  children,  pillars  of  smoke. 

A  TERRIBLE  VENGEANCE. 

What  an  exciting  scene  in  India  when,  during  the  Sepoy  rebellion  a  regiment 
of  Highlanders  came  up  and  found  the  dead  body  of  one  of  General  Wheeler's 
daughters,  who  had  been  insulted,  and  mauled,  and  slain  by  the  Sepoys.  So  great 
was  the  wrath  against  these  murderers  that  the  Scotch  regiment  sat  down,  and 
cutting  off  the  hair  of  this  dead  daughter  of  General  Wheeler,  they  divided  it 
among  them,  and  each  one  counted  the  number  of  the  hairs  given  him,  and  each 
took  an  oath,  which  was  executed,  that  for  each  hair  of  the  murdered  daughter 
they  would  dash  out  the  life  of  a  miserable  Sepoy.  But  as  we  look  over  the  story 
of  those  who,  in  all  ages,  have  suffered  for  the  truth,  while  we  leave  vengeance  to 
the  lyord,  let  us  band  together  in  one  solemn  vow,  one  tremendous  oath,  after 
having  counted  the  host  of  the  martyrs,  that  for  each  one  of  those  glorious  men 
and  women  who  died  for  the  truth,  an  immortal  soul  shall  live — live  with  God — • 
and  live  forever. 

But  as  I  already  hinted  in  the  first  sentence,  nothing  can  be  more  beautiful 
than  the  figures  of  smoke  on  a  clear  sky.  You  can  see  what  you  will  in  the 
contour  of  this  volatile  vapor,  now  enchanted  castles,  now  troops  of  horsemen, 
now  bannered  procession,  now  winged  couriers,  now  a  black  angel  of  wrath  under 
a  spear  of  the  sunshine  turned  to  an  angel  of  light,  and  now  from  horizon  to 
horizon  the  air  is  a  picture  gallery  filled  with  masterpieces  of  which  God  is  the 
artist,  morning  clouds  of  smoke  born  in  the  sunrise,  and  evening  clouds  of  smoke 
laid  in  the  burnished  sepulchres  of  the  sunset. 

A   BEAUTIFUL  SYMBOL. 

The  beauty  of  the  transfigured  smoke  is  a  divine  symbol  of  the  beauty  of  the 
Church.  The  fairest  of  all  the  fair  is  she.  Do  not  call  those  persecutors  of  whom 
I  spoke,  the  Church.  They  are  the  parasites  of  the  Church,  not  the  Church  itself 
Her  mission  is  to  cover  the  earth  with  a  supernatural  gladness,  to  open  all  the 
prison-doors,  to  balsam  all  the  wounds,  to  moss  all  the  graves,  to  burn  up  the 
night  in  the  fireplace  of  a  great  morning,  to  change  iron  handcuffs  into  diamond 
wristlets,  to  turn  the  whole  race  around,  and  whereas  it  faced  death,  commanding 
it,  "  Right  about  face  for  heaven  !"  According  to  the  number  of  the  spires  of  the 
churches  in  all  our  cities,  towns  and  neighborhoods,  are  the  good  homes,  the 
worldly  prosperities,  and  the  pure  morals,  and  the  happy  souls. 

Meet  me  at  any  depot  the  world  over,  and  with  my  eyes  closed,  take  me  by 
the  hand  and  lead  me  so  that  my  feet  will  not  stumble,  and  without  my  once 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  437 

looking  down,  or  looking  on  the  level,  take  me  to  some  high  roof  or  tower,  and 
let  me  see  the  tops  of  the  churches,  and  I  will  tell  you  the  proportion  of  suicides, 
of  arsons,  of  murders,  of  thefts.  According  as  the  churches  are  numerous  are  the 
crimes  few.  According  as  the  churches  are  few  the  crimes  are  numerous.  The 
most  beautiful  organization  the  world  ever  saw  or  ever  will  see  is  the  much- 
maligned  Church,  the  friend  of  all  good,  the  foe  of  all  evil,  "  fair  as  the  moon  and 
clear  as  the  sun."  Beautiful  in  her  author,  beautiful  in  her  mission,  the  heroine 
of  the  centuries,  the  bride  of  Christ,  the  queen  of  the  nations.  There  are  hundreds 
of  kindly  institutions,  some  caring  for  inebriates,  some  for  the  crippled,  some  for 
the  imbecile,  some  for  the  misled,  some  for  the  blind,  but  the  Church  is  the  mother 
of  all  these  kindly  institutions.  There  are  asylums,  American,  or  English,  or 
Scotch,  or  Irish,  or  French,  or  German,  or  Italian,  but  the  Church  spreads  her 
mantle  over  all  these,  and  will  yet  spread  it  over  all  nations.  Her  gates  are 
beautiful,  her  songs  are  beautiful,  her  prayers  are  beautiful,  her  convocations  are 
beautiful,  her  work  is  beautiful.  All  kings  and  warriors  will  yet  bow  down  at  her 
altars,  all  chains  of  serfdom  be  shattered  against  her  doorstep,  all  nations  will  yet 
follow  her  leading.  How  amiable  are  thy  tabernacles  !  How  sacred  thy  altars  ! 
How  glorious  thy  auditoriums  !  So  graceful,  so  aspiring,  so  grand,  and  rolling 
on,  and  rolling  up,  we  cry  out  in  regard  to  her:  "  Who  is  this  that  cometh  out  of 
the  wilderness  like  pillars  of  smoke  ?' ' 

THE  SMOKE  OF  PEACE. 

"  Perfumed  smoke,"  says  Solomon,  not  like  the  fumes  coughed  up  from  the 
throat  of  a  steam  pipe,  or  poisoned  with  the  gases  of  chemical  factories,  or  floating 
in  black  wrath  from  the  conflagration  of  homesteads,  or  sulphurous  from  blazing 
batteries,  but  sweet  as  a  burning  grove  of  cinnamon  or  jungle  of  sassafras,  or  the 
odors  of  a  temple  censer. 

Who  is  this  that  cometh  out  of  the  wilderness  like  pillars  of  smoke,  perfumed 
with  myrrh  and  frankincense  ? 

Hear  it,  men  and  women  everywhere,  that  the  advance  of  the  genuine  Church 
of  Christ  means  peace  for  all  nations.  Victor  Hugo,  in  his  book  entitled  ' '  Ninety- 
three,"  sa)^s:  "  Nothing  calmer  than  smoke,  but  nothing  more  startling.  There 
are  peaceful  smokes  and  there  are  evil  ones.  The  thickness  and  color  of  a  line  of 
smoke  make  the  whole  difference  between  war  and  peace,  between  fraternity  and 
hatred.  The  whole  happiness  of  man  or  his  complete  misery  is  sometimes  expressed 
in  this  thin  vapor  which  the  wind  scatters  at  will." 

The  great  Frenchman  was  right,  but  I  go  further  and  say  that  as  the 
kingdom  of  God  advances  like  pillars  of  smoke,  the  black  volumes  belching 
from  batteries  of  war  and  pouring  out  from  port-holes  of  ships  will  vanish  from 
the  sky. 


438  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

A  distinguished  gentleman  of  the  late  war  told  nie  recently  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  proposed  to  avoid  our  civil  conflict  by  purchase  of  all  the  slaves  of  the 
South  and  setting  them  free.  He  calculated  what  would  be  a  reasonable  price  for 
them,  and  when  the  number  of  millions  of  dollars  that  would  be  required  for  such 
a  purpose  was  announced  the  proposition  was  scouted,  and  the  North  would  not 
have  made  the  offer,  and  the  South  would  not  have  accepted  it,  if  made. 

"  But,"  said  my  military  friend,  "  the  war  went  on,  and  just  the  number  of 
millions  of  dollars  that  Mr.  Lincoln  calculated  would  have  been  enough  to  make  a 
reasonable  purchase  of  all  the  slaves  were  spent  in  war,  besides  all  the  precious 
lives  that  were  hurled  away  in  the  250  battles." 

In  other  words,  there  ought  to  be  some  other  way  for  men  to  settle  their  con- 
troversies without  wholesale  butchery. 

THE  HORRORS  OF  WAR. 

The  Church  of  God  will  j^et  become  the  arbiter  of  nations.  If  the  world  would 
allow  it,  it  would  to-day  step  in  between  Germany  and  France  and  settle  the  trou- 
ble about  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  between  Russia  and  Bulgaria,  and  between 
England  and  her  antagonists,  and  between  all  the  other  nations  that  are  flying  at 
each  others'  throats,  and  command  peace  and  disband  armies,  and  harness  for  the 
plow  the  war  horses  now  being  hitched  to  ammunition  wagons,  or  saddled  for 
cavalry  charge.  That  time  must  come,  or,  through  the  increased  facility  for  shoot- 
ing men  and  blowing  up  cities  and  overwhelming  hosts  to  instant  death,  so  that 
we  can  kill  a  regiment  easier  than  we  could  once  kill  a  company,  and  kill  a  brigade 
easier  than  we  could  once  kill  a  regiment,  the  patent  offices  of  the  world  more  busy 
than  ever  in  recognizing  new  enginery  of  destruction,  the  human  race  will,  after 
a  while,  go  fighting  with  one  arm,  and  hobbling  with  one  foot,  and  stumbling 
along  with  one  eye,  and  some  ingenious  inventor,  inspired  of  the  archangel  of  all 
mischief,  will  contrive  a  machine  that  will  bore  a  hole  to  the  earth's  centre,  and 
some  desperate  nation  will  throw  into  that  hole  enough  dynamite  to  blow  this  hulk 
of  a  planet  into  fragments,  dropping  like  meteoric  stones  on  surrounding  stellar 
habitations. 

But  this  shall  not  be,  for  whatever  else  I  let  go,  I  hang  on  to  my  Bible,  which 
tells  me  that  the  blacksmith's  shop  shall  yet  come  to  its  grandest  use  when  the 
warrior  and  the  husbandman  shall  enter  it  side  by  side,  and  the  soldier  shall  throw 
into  its  bank  of  fires  his  sword,  and  the  farmer  shall  pick  it  up  a  plowshare,  and 
the  straightest  spear  shall  be  bent  into  a  crook  at  each  end,  and  then  cut  in  two, 
and  what  was  one  spear  shall  be  two  pruning  forks.  Down  with  Moloch  and  up 
with  Christ !     Let  no  more  war-horses  eat  out  of  the  manger  where  Jesus  was  born. 

Peace  !  Forever  roll  off  the  sky  the  black  pillars  of  smoke  from  the  Marengos, 
and  Salamancas,  and  Borodinos,   and  Sedans,  and  Gettysburgs  of  earth  !     And 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I,IFE. 


439 


right  after  them  roll  into  the  heavens  the  peaceful  vapors  from  the  chimneys  of 
farm  houses,  and  asylums,  and  churches,  and  capitals  of  Christian  nations,  and,  as 
the  sunlight  strikes  through  these  vapors  they  vi^ill  write  in  letters  of  jet  and  gold 


CRUCIFIXION   OF  ST.    PETER. 
St.  Peter  accompanied  Paul  on  his  last  trip  to  Rome,  and  there  preached  the  gospel  until  the  uprising 
against  the  Christians,  at  the  instigation  of  Nero,  when  he  was  crucified,  head  downwards,  while  the  Roman 
populace   glutted  their  bloody  vengeance  for  the  burning  of  the  city  by  destroying  thousands  of   innocent 
Christians. 

all  over  the  sky  from  horizon  to  zenith:  "Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth 
peace,  good  will  to  men  !" 

Then  let  all  the  men-of-war  fire  a  broadside,  and  all  the  forts  thunder  forth  a 
resounding  volley,  and  the  earth  be  girdled  with  the  cannonade  over  the  final 
victory  of  the  truth. 


440  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

BURNING  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Oh,  come  into  the  Church  through  Christ,  the  door — a  door  more  glorious 
than  that  of  the  Temple  of  Hercules,  which  had  two  pillars,  and  one  was  gold  and 
the  other  emerald  !  Come  in  to-day.  Come  in  and  be  one  of  the  eternal  victors  ! 
The  world  you  leave  behind  is  a  poor  world,  and  it  will  burn  and  pass  off  like 
pillars  of  smoke.  Whether  the  final  conflagration  will  start  in  the  coal  mines  of 
Pennsylvania,  which,  in  some  places,  have  for  many  years  been  burning  and  eat- 
ing into  the  heart  of  the  mountains;  or  whether  it  shall  begin  near  the  California 
geysers;  or  whether  from  out  the  furnaces  of  Cotopaxi,  and  Vesuvius,  and  Strom- 
boli,  it  shall  burst  forth  upon  the  astonished  nations,  I  make  no  prophecy  ;  but 
all  geologists  tell  us  that  we  stand  on  the  lid  of  a  world  the  heart  of  which  is  a 
raging,  roaring,  awful  flame,  and  some  day  God  will  let  the  red  monsters  out  of 
their  imprisonment  of  centuries,  and  New  York  on  fire  in  1835,  and  Charleston  on 
fire  in  1865,  and  Chicago  on  fire  in  1871,  and  Boston  on  fire  in  1873,  were  only 
like  one  spark  from  a  blacksmith's  forge  as  compared  with  that  last  universal  blaze 
which  will  be  seen  in  other  worlds.  But  gradually  the  flames  will  lessen,  and  the 
world  will  become  a  great  living  coal,  and  that  will  take  on  ashen  hue,  and  then 
our  ruined  planet  will  begin  to  smoke,  and  the  mountains  will  smoke,  and  the 
valleys  will  smoke,  and  the  islands  will  smoke,  and  the  seas  will  smoke,  and  the 
cities  will  smoke,  and  the  five  continents  will  be  five  pillars  of  smoke.  But  the 
black  vapors  will  begin  to  lessen  in  height  and  density,  and  then  will  become 
hardly  visible  to  those  who  look  upon  it  from  the  sky  galleries,  and  after  a  while 
from  just  one  point  there  will  curl  up  a  thin  solitary  vapor,  and  then  even  that  will 
vanish,  and  there  will  be  nothing  left  except  the  charred  ruins  of  a  burned-out 
world,  the  corpse  of  a  dead  star,  the  ashes  of  an  extinguished  planet,  a  fallen  pillar. 
of  smoke. 

But  that  will  not  interfere  with  your  investments  if  3^ou  have  taken  Christ  as 
your  Saviour.  Secure  heaven  as  your  eternal  home,  3'ou  can  look  down  upon  a 
dismantled,  disrupted  and  demolished  earth  without  any  perturbation. 

When  wrapped  in  fire  the  realms  of  ether  glow, 
And  heaven's  last  thunder  shakes  the  earth  below, 
Thou,  undisniaj'ed,  shalt  o'er  the  ruins  smile. 
And  light  thy  torch  at  nature's  funeral  pile. 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  OUR  WAR  FLEETS  AND  THE  BRAVE  SAILORS  WHO   MANNED  THEM. 

ONG  ago,  even  eighteen  centuries  ago,  the  Apostle  James  said, 
"  Behold  the  ships."  If  any  exclamation  was  in  any  measure 
appropriate  then  concerning  the  crude  fishing-smacks  that 
sailed  L,ake  Galilee,  how  much  more  appropriate  in  an  age 
which  has  launched  from  the  dry  docks,  for  purposes  of 
peace,  the  "Arizona,"  of  the  Guion  Line;  the  "City  of  New 
York,"  of  the  Inman  lyine;  the  "Egypt,"  of  the  National 
Line;  the  "Germanic,"  of  the  White  Star  Line;  the  "  Circassia,"  of  the  Anchor 
Line;  the  "  Ktruria,"  of  the  Cunard  Line,  and  the  "  Great  Eastern,"  with  hull  680 
feet  long — not  a  failure,  for  it  helped  lay  the  Atlantic  cable,  and  that  was  enough 
glory  for  one  ship's  existence — and  in  an  age  which  for  purposes  of  war  has 
launched  the  screw-sloops  like  the ' '  Idaho, ' '  the  ' '  Shenandoah, ' '  the  '  'Ossipee, ' '  and 
our  iron-clads  like  the  ' '  Kalamazoo, ' '  the  ' '  Roanoke, ' '  and  the  ' '  Dunderberg, "  and 
those  which  have  already  been  buried  in  the  deep,  like  the  ' '  Monitor, ' '  the  ' '  Housa- 
tonic, ' '  the  ' '  Weehawken, ' '  and  the  ' '  Tecumseh, ' '  the  tempests  ever  since  sounding 
a  volley  over  their  water  sepulchres,  and  the  scarred  veterans  of  war  shipping  like 
the  "  Constitution,"  or  the  "  Alliance,"  or  the  "  Constellation,"  that  have  swung 
into  the  naval  yards  to  spend  their  last  days,  their  decks  now  all  silent  of  the  feet 
that  trod  them,  their  rigging  all  silent  of  the  hands  that  clung  to  them,  their  port- 
holes silent  of  the  brazen  throats  that  once  thundered  out  of  them.  If  in  the 
first  centurj^  when  war  vessels  were  dependent  on  the  oars  that  paddled  at  the 
side  of  them  for  propulsion,  his  words  were  suggestive,  with  how  much  more 
emphasis,  and  meaning,  and  overwhelming  reminiscence  we  can  cry  out,  as  we 
see  the  "  Kearsarge  "  lie  across  the  bows  of  the  "  Alabama  "  and  sink  it,  teach- 
ing foreign  nations  they  had  better  keep  their  hand  off  our  American  fight;  or 
as  we  see  the  ram  "Albemarle,"  of  the  Confederates,  running  out  and  in  the 
Roanoke,  and  up  and  down  the  coast,  throwing  everything  into  confusion  as 
no  other  craft  ever  did,  pursued  by  the  "  Miami,"  the  "Ceres,"  the  "South- 
field,"  the  "Sassacus,"  the  "  Mattabesett,"  the  "Whitehead,"  the  "  Commodore 
Hull,",  the  "Louisiana,"  the  "Minnesota"  and  other  armed  vessels,  all  trying 
in  vain  to  catch  her,  until  Captain  Cushing,  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  his  men 
blew  her  up,  himself  and  only  one  other  escaping;  and  as  I  see  the  flagship 

{441) 


442  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I^IFB. 

' '  Hartford, ' '  and  the  ' '  Richmond, ' '  and  the  ' '  Monongahela, ' '  with  other  gun- 
boats, sweep  pass  the  batteries  of  Port  Hudson,  and  the  Mississippi  flows  forever 
free  to  all  Northern  and  Southern  craft,  I  cry  out  with  a  patriotic  emotion  that  I 
cannot  suppress  if  I  would,  and  would  not  if  I  could:     "  Behold  also  the  ships  !" 

THE  NEGLECTED  SAILOR. 

At  the  annual  decoration  of  graves,  North  and  South,  among  Federals  and 
Confederates,  full  justice  has  been  done  to  the  memory  of  those  who  fought  on 


SHIP  AHOY  ! 

the  land  in  our  great  contest,  but  not  enough  has  been  said  of  those  who  on  ship's 
deck  dared  and  suffered  all  things.  So,  ye  admirals,  commodores,  commanders, 
captains,  pilots,  gunners,  boatswains,  sailmakers,  surgeons,  stokers,  messmates 
and  seamen  of  all  names,  to  use  your  own  parlance,  we  might  as  well  get  under 
way  and  stand  out  toward  sea.  I^et  all  land-lubbers  go  ashore.  Full  speed  now  ! 
Four  bells. 

Never  since  the  sea  fight  of  Ivcpanto,  where  300  royal  galleys,  manned  by 
50,000  warriors,  at  sunrise,  September  6,  1571,  met  250  royal  galleys,  manned 


THB  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  445 

by  120,000  men,  and  in  the  four  hours  of  battle  8000  fell  on  one  side  and  25,000- 
on  the  other;  yea,  never  since  the  day  when  at  Actium,  thirty-one  years  before 
Christ,  Augustus,  with  269  ships,  scattered  the  260  ships  of  Mark  Antony  and 
gained  universal  dominion  as  the  prize;  5-ea,  since  the  day  when  at  Salamis  the 
1200  galleys  of  the  Persians,  manned  by  500,000  men,  were  crushed  by  Greeks 
with  less  than  a  third  of  that  force;  yea,  never  since  the  time  of  Noah,  the  first 
ship  captain,  has  the  world  seen  such  a  miraculous  creation  as  that  of  the  Ameri- 
can navy  in  1861.  There  were  about  200  available  seamen  in  all  the  naval 
stations  and  receiving  ships,  and  here  and  there  an  old  vessel.  Yet  orders  were 
given  to  blockade  2500  miles  of  sea-coast,  greater  than  the  whole  coast  of  Europe, 
and,  beside  that,  the  Ohio,  Tennessee,  Cumberland,  Mississippi  and  other  great 
rivers,  covering  an  extent  of  2000  more  miles,  were  to  be  patrolled.  No  wonder 
the  whole  civilized  world  burst  into  a  guffaw  of  laughter  at  the  seeming  impossi- 
bility. But  the  work  was  done,  done  almost  immediately,  done  thoroughly,  and 
done  with  a  .speed  and  consummate  skill  that  eclipsed  all  the  history  of  naval 
architecture.  What  brilliant  achievements  are  suggested  by  the  mere  mention  of 
the  names  of  the  rear-admirals.  If  all  they  did  should  be  written,  every  one,  I 
suppose  that  even  the  world  itself  could  not  contain  the  books  that  should  be 
written.  But  these  names  have  received  the  honors  due.  The  most  of  them 
went  to  their  graves  under  the  cannonade  of  all  the  forts,  navy  yards  and  men- 
of-war,  the  flags  of  all  the  shipping  and  capitols  at  half-mast, 

DEEDS  OF  NAVAL  HEROES. 

But  I  recite  now  the  deeds  of  our  naval  heroes  who  have  not  yet  received 
appropriate  recognition.      "  Behold  also  the  ships." 

As  we  will  never  know  what  our  national  prosperity  is  worth  until  we  realize 
what  it  cost,  I  recall  the  unrecited  fact  that  the  men  of  the  navy  ran  especial  risks. 
They  had  not  only  the  human  weaponry  to  contend  with,  but  the  tides,  the  fog, 
the  storm.  Not  like  other  ships  could  they  run  into  harbor  at  the  approach  of 
an  equinox,  or  a  cyclone,  or  a  hurricane,  because  the  harbors  were  hostile.  A 
miscalculation  of  a  tide  might  leave  them  on  a  bar,  and  a  fog  might  overthrow 
all  the  plans  of  wisest  commodore  and  admiral,  and  accident  might  leave  them 
not  on  the  land  ready  for  an  ambulance,  but  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  as  when 
■the  torpedo  blew  up  the  "Tecumseh,"  in  Mobile  Bay,  and  nearly  all  on  board 
perished.  They  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans,  which 
have  no  mercy.  Such  tempests  as  wrecked  the  Spanish  "Armada"  might  any 
day  swoop  upon  the  squadron.  No  hiding  behind  the  earthworks.  No  digging 
in  of  cavalry  spurs  at  the  sound  of  retreat.  Mightier  than  all  the  fortresses  on 
all  the  coasts,  is  the  ocean  when  it  bombards  a  flotilla.  In  the  cemeteries  for 
Federal  and  Confederate  dead,  are  the  bodies  of  most  of  those  who  fell  on  the 


444  I'HK  PATHWAY  OF  IvlFE. 

land.  But  where  those  are  who  went  down  in  the  w^ar  vessels  will  not  be  known 
until  the  sea  gives  up  its  dead.  The  Jack  tars  knew  that  while  loving  arms  might 
carry  the  men  who  fell  on  the  land  and  bury  them  with  solemn  liturgy  and  the 
honors  of  war,  for  the  bodies  of  those  who  dropped  from  the  ratlines  into  the  sea, 
or  went  down  with  all  on  board  under  the  stroke  of  a  gunboat,  there  remained 
the  shark,  and  the  whale,  and  the  endless  tossing  of  the  sea  which  cannot  rest. 
How  will  3'ou  find  their  graves  for  a  national  decoration  ?  Nothing  but  the  arch- 
angel's trumpet  shall  reach  their  lowly  bed.  A  few  of  them  have  been  gathered 
into  naval  cemeteries  of  the  land,  and  you  will  garland  the  sod  that  covers  them, 
but  who  will  put  flowers  on  the  fallen  crew  of  the  exploded  ' '  Westfield  ' '  and 
"Shawsheen,"  and  the  sunken  "Southfield,"  and  the  "  Winfield  Scott." 
Bullets  threatening  in  front,  bombs  threatening  from  above,  torpedoes  threaten- 
ing from  beneath,  and  the  ocean,  with  its  reputation  of  6000  years  for  ship- 
wreck lying  all  around — am  I  not  right  in  saying  it  required  a  special  courage 
for  the  navy  ? 

FROM   PICTURESQUE  DISPLAY  TO   DEATH. 

It  looks  picturesque  and  beautiful  to  see  a  war  vessel  going  out  through  the 
Narrows,  sailors  in  new  rig  singing: 

A  life  on  the  ocean  wave, 
A  home  on  the  rolling  deep  ! 

the  colors  gracefully  dipping  to  passing  ships,  the  decks  immaculately  clean,  and 
the  guns  at  Quarantine  firing  a  parting  salute.  But  the  poetry  is  all  gone  out  of 
that  ship  as  it  comes  out  of  an  engagement,  like  that  off  Trafalgar,  where  Nelson 
gained  imperishable  honors,  its  decks  red  with  human  blood,  wheel-house  gone, 
the  cabin  a  pile  of  shattered  mirrors  and  destroj^ed  furnittire,  steeriqg-wheel 
broken,  smoke-stack  crushed,  a  100-pound  Whitworth  rifle  shot  having  left  its 
mark  from  port  to  starboard,  the  shrouds  rent  away,  ladders  splintered  and  decks 
plowed  up,  and  smoke-blackened  and  scalded  corpses  lying  among  those  who  are 
gasping  their  last  gasp,  far  away  from  home  and  kindred,  whom  they  love  as 
much  as  we  love  wife,  and  parents,  and  children.  Not  waiting  until  j-ou  are  dead 
to  put  upon  your  graves  a  wreath  of  recognition,  this  hour  we  put  on  your  living 
brow  the  garland  of  a  nation's  praise. 

O  men  of  the  Western  Gulf  squadron,  of  the  Eastern  Gulf  squadron,  of  the 
South  Atlantic  squadron,  of  the  North  Atlantic  squadron,  of  the  Mississippi 
squadron,  of  the  Pacific  squadron,  of  the  West  India  squadron,  and  of  the 
Potomac  flotilla,  hear  otir  thanks  !  Take  the  benediction  of  otir  churches. 
Accept  the  hospitalities  of  the  nation.  If  we  had  our  w^ay  we  would  get  j^ou  not 
only  a  pension,  but  a  home  and  a  princely  wardrobe,  and  an  equipage,  and  a 
banquet  while  you  live,  and  after  5^ our  departure  a  catafalque,  and  a  matisoletim 
of  sculptured  marble,  with  a  model  of  the  ship  in  which  j^ou  won  the  day.     It  is 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  IvIFE. 


445 


considered  a  gallant  thing  when  in  a  naval  fight  the  flag-ship,  with  its  blue 
ensign,  goes  ahead  up  a  river  or  into  a  bay,  its  admiral  standing  in  the  shrouds 
watching  and  giving  orders.  But  I  have  to  tell  you,  O  veterans  of  the  American 
navy,  if  you  are  as  loyal  to  Christ  as  j^ou  were  to  the  government  there  is  a  flag- 
ship  sailing    -„„.,,^,,  _  -.,■    ,    ,....- -:-/^, ■    -;;..- ---:■■    -^ ,,_„—_-_-_      .  ""'^ 


ahead  of  you 
of  which  Christ 
is  the  Admiral, 
and  He  watches 
f  r  o  m  the 
shrouds,  and 
the  heavens  are 
the  blue  en- 
sign, and  He 
leads  you  to- 
ward the  har- 
bor, and  all  the 
broadsides  of 
earth  and  hell 
cannot  damage 
you,  and  ye, 
whose  gar- 
ments  weie 
once  red  with 
your  own 
blood,  shall 
have  a  robe 
washed  and 
made  white  in 
the  blood  of  the 
lyamb.  Then 
strike  eight 
bells !  High 
noon  in  heaven! 
With  such 
anticipation,  O 
veterans  of  the 

American  navy,  I  charge  you  bear  up  under  the  aches  and  weaknesses  that  you 
still  carry  from  the  war  times  !  You  are  not  as  stalwart  as  you  would  have  been 
but  for  that  nervous  strain  and  for  that  terrific  exposure.     Let  every  ache  and 


CRUISERS  AFTKR  THE   BATTI,E. 


446  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

pain,  instead  of  depressing,  remind  you  of  your  fidelity.  The  sinking  of  the 
"  Weehawken"  off  Morris  Island,  December  6,  1863,  was  a  mystery.  She  was  not 
under  fire.  The  sea  was  not  rough.  But  Admiral  Dahlgren,  from  the  deck  of 
the  flag  steamer  "Philadelphia,"  saw  her  gradually  sinking,  and  finally  she 
struck  the  ground,  but  the  flag  still  floated  above  the  waves  in  the  sight  of  the 
shipping.  It  was  afterward  found  that  she  sank  from  weakness  through  injuries 
in  previous  service.  Her  plates  had  been  knocked  loose  in  previous  times.  So 
you  have  in  nerve,  and  muscle,  and  bone,  and  dimmed  eyesight,  and  difiicult 
hearing,  and  shortness  of  breath,  many  intimations  that  you  are  gradually  going 
down.  It  is  the  service  of  twenty-three  years  ago  that  is  telling  on  you.  Be 
of  good  cheer.  We  owe  you  just  as  much  as  though  your  life-blood  had  gurgled 
through  the  scuppers  of  the  ship  in  the  Red  River  expedition,  or  as  though  you 
had  gone  down  with  the  ' '  Melville ' '  off  Hatteras.  Only  keep  you  flag  flying  as 
did  the  illustrious  ' '  Weehawken. ' ' 

Good  cheer,  my  boys  !  The  memory  of  man  is  poor,  and  all  that  talk  about 
the  country  never  forgetting  those  who  fought  for  it  is  an  untruth.  It  does  forget. 
Witness  how  the  veterans  sometimes  had  to  turn  the  hand-organs  on  the  street  to 
get  their  families  a  living.  Witness  how  ruthlessly  some  of  them  have  been 
turned  out  of  office  that  some  bloat  of  a  politician  might  take  their  place. 
Witness  the  fact  that  there  is  not  a  man  or  woman  now  under  thirty  years  of  age 
who  has  any  full  appreciation  of  the  four  years'  martyrdom  of  1861  to  1865 
inclusive.  But  while  men  may  forget,  God  never  forgets.  He  remembers  the 
swinging  hammock.  He  remembers  the  forecastle.  He  remembers  the  frozen 
ropes  of  that  January  tempest.  He  remembers  the  amputation  without  sufficient 
ether.  He  remembers  the  horrors  of  that  deafening  night  when  forts  from  both 
sides  belched  on  you  their  fury  and  the  heavens  glowed  with  the  ascending  and 
descending  missiles  of  death,  and  your  ship  quaked  under  the  recoil  of  the  100- 
pounder,  while  all  the  gunners,  according  to  command,  stood  on  tiptoe  with 
mouth  wide  open  lest  the  concussion  shatter  hearing  or  brain.  He  remembers  it 
all  better  than  you  remember  it,  and  in  some  shape  reward  will  be  given.  God  is 
the  best  of  all  paymasters,  and  for  those  who  do  their  whole  duty  to  Him  and  the 
world  the  pension  awarded  is  an  everlasting  heaven. 

Sometimes  off  the  coast  of  England  the  royal  family  have  inspected  the 
British  navy  manoeuvred  before  them  for  that  purpose.  In  the  Baltic  Sea  the 
Czar  and  Czarina  have  reviewed  the  Russian  navy.  To  bring  before  the  Ameri- 
can people  the  debt  they  owe  to  the  navy,  I  go  out  with  you  on  the  Atlantic 
Ocean,  where  there  is  plenty  of  room,  and  in  imagination  review  the  war-shipping 
of  our  three  great  conflicts — 1776,  181 2,  and  1865.  Swing  into  line  all  ye  frigates, 
ironclads,  fire-rafts,  gunboats,  and  men-of-war.  There  they  come,  all  sail  set  and 
.all  furnaces  in    full  blast,   sheaves  of  crystal  tossing  from  their  cutting  prows. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


447 


That  is  the  "  Delaware,"  an  old  Revolutionary  craft,  commanded  by  Commodore 
Decatur.  Yonder  goes  the  ' '  Constitution , ' '  Commodore  Hull  commanding.  There 
is  the  "Chesapeake,"  commanded  by  Captain  lyawrence,  whose  dying  words  were: 
"  Don't  give  up  the  ship,"  and  the  "Niagara,"  of  1 812,  commanded  by  Commodore 
Perry,  who  wrote  on  the  back  of  an  old  letter,  resting  on  his  navy  cap:  "  We  have 
met  the  enemy,  and  they  are  ours."     Yonder  is  the  flagship  "  Wabash,"  Admiral 


CROSSING  THE  BAR.— From  the  Painting  by  Hamilton  Macallum. 

Dupont  commanding;  yonder  the  flagship  "Minnesota,"  Admiral  Goldsborough 
commanding;  yonder  the  flagship  "  Philadelphia,"  Admiral  Dahlgren  command- 
ing; yonder  the  flagship  "San  Jacinto,"  Admiral  Bailey  commanding;  yonder  the 
flagship  "Black  Hawk,"  Admiral  Porter  commanding;  yonder  the  flag  steamer 
"  Benton,"  Admiral  Foote  commanding;  yonder  the  flagship  "  Hartford,"  David 
Glascoe  Farragut  commanding.  And  now  all  the  squadrons  of  all  departments, 
from  smallest  tugboat  to  mightiest  man-of-war,  are  in  procession,  decks  and  rigging 


448  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

filled  with  the  men  who  fought  on  the  sea  for  the  old  flag  ever  since  we  were  a 
nation.  Grandest  fleet  the  world  ever  saw.  Sail  on  before  all  ages  !  Run  up  all 
the  colors  !  Ring  all  the  bells  !  Yea,  open  all  the  port-holes  !  Unlimber  the 
guns  and  load  and  fire  one  great  broadside  that  shall  shake  the  continents  in 
honor  of  peace  and  the  eternity  of  the  American  Union  !  But  I  lift  my  hand  and 
the  scene  has  vanished.  Many  of  the  ships  have  dropped  under  the  crystal 
pavement  of  the  deep  sea,  monsters  swimming  in  and  out  the  forsaken  cabin,  and 
other  old  craft  have  swung  into  the  navy  yards,  and  many  of  the  brave  spirits 
who  trod  their  decks  are  gone  up  to  the  eternal  fortress,  from  whose  casements 
and  embrasures  may  we  not  hope  they  look  down  to-day  with  joy  upon  a  nation 
in  re-united  brotherhood  ? 

DEATH  OF  FARRAGUT. 

At  the  annual  commemoration  I  bethought  that  most  of  you  who  were  in  the 
naval  service  during  our  late  war  are  now  in  the  afternoon  or  evening  of  life. 
With  some  of  you  it  is  two  o'clock,  three  o'clock,  four  o'clock,  six  o'clock,  and  it 
will  soon  be  sundown.  If  you  were  of  age  when  the  war  broke  out  you  are  now 
at  least  forty-eight.  Many  of  you  have  passed  into  the  sixties  and  seventies; 
therefore  it  is  appropriate  that  I  hold  two  great  lights  for  your  illumination — the 
example  of  Christian  admirals  consecrated  to  Christ  and  their  country.  Admiral 
Foote  and  Admiral  Farragut.  Had  the  Christian  religion  been  a  cowardly  thing 
they  would  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  In  its  faith  they  lived  and  died.  In 
our  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard,  Admiral  Foote  held  prayer  meetings  and  conducted  a 
revival  on  the  receiving-ship  "  North  Carolina,"  and  on  Sabbath,  far  out  at  sea, 
followed  the  chaplain  with  religious  exhortation.  In  early  life  on  board  the  sloop 
of  war  "  Natchez,"  impressed  by  the  words  of  a  Christian  sailor,  he  gave  his  spare 
time  for  two  weeks  to  the  Bible,  and,  at  the  end  of  that,  declared  openly:  "Hence- 
forth, under  all  circumstances,  I  will  act  for  God."  His  last  words  while  dying, 
at  the  Astor  House,  New  York,  were:  "  I  thank  God  for  all  His  goodness  to  me. 
He  has  been  very  good  to  me."  When  he  entered  heaven  he  did  not  have  to  run 
a  blockade,  for  it  was  amid  the  cheers  of  a  great  welcome.  The  other  Christian 
Admiral  will  be  honored  until  the  day  when  the  fires  from  above  shall  lick  up  the 
waters  from  beneath,  and  there  .shall  be  no  more  sea. 

Oh,  while  old  ocean's  breast 

Bears  a  white  sail, 
And  God's  soft  stars  to  rest 

Guide  through  the  gale 
Men  will  him  ne'er  forget 

Old  hearts  of  oak, 
Farragut,  Farragut, 

Thunderbolt  stroke  ! 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


449 


When  in  Mobile  Bay  the  monitor  ' '  Tecumseh  ' '  sunk  from  a  torpedo,  and  the 
great  war-ship  "  Brooklyn,"  that  was  to  lead  the  squadron,  turned  back,  he  said  he 
was  at  a  loss  to  know  whether  to  advance  or  retreat,  and  he  says:  "  I  prayed,  '  O 
God,  who  created  man  and  gave  him  reason,  direct  what  to  do.  Shajl  I  go  on  ?' 
And  a  voice  commanded  me:   '  Go  on.'     And  I  went  on." 

Was  there  ever  a  more  touching  Christian  letter  than  that  which  he  wrote  to 
his  wife  from  his  flagship  "  Hartford  ?" 

My  dearest  Wife.  —I  write  and  leave  this  letter  for  you.  I  am  going  into  Mobile  Bay- 
in  the  morning,  if  God  is  my  leader,  and  I  hope  He  is,  and  in  Him  I  place  my  trust.  If  He 
thinks  it  is  the  proper  place  for  me  to  die  I  am  ready  to  submit  to  His  will  in  that  as  in  all  other 
things.  God  bless  and  preserve  yoii,  my  darling,  and  my  dear  boy,  if  anything  should  happen 
to  me.  May  His  blessings  rest  upon  you,  and  your  dear  mother,  and  all  your  sisters  and  their 
children. 

Cheerful  to  the  end,  he  said,  on  board  the  "  Tallapoosa,"  in  the  last  voyage 
he  ever  took:   "  It  would  be  well  if  I  died  now,  in  harness." 

The  sublime  Episcopal  service  for  the  dead  was  never  more  appropriately  read 
than  over  his  casket,  and  well  did  all  the  forts  of  New  York  harbor  thunder  as  his 
body  was  brought  to  the  wharf,  and  well  did  the  minute  guns  sound  and  the  bells 
toll  as  in  a  procession  having  in  its  ranks  the  President  of  the  United  States  and 
his  Cabinet,  and  the  mighty  men  of  land  and  sea,  the  old  admiral  was  carried 
amid  hundreds  of  thousands  of  uncovered  heads  on  Broadway,  and  laid  on  hia 
pillow  of  dust  in  beautiful  Woodlawn,  amid  the  pomp  of  our  autumnal  forests. 

Ye  veterans  who  sailed  and  fought  under  him,  take  your  admiral's  God  and 
Christ  for  your  God  and  Christ.  After  a  few  more  conflicts  you  too  will  rest. 
For  the  few  remaining  fights  with  sin,  and  death,  and  hell  make  ready.  Strip 
your  vessel  for  the  fra}';  hang  the  sheet  chains  over  the  side;  send  down  the  top- 
gallant masts;  barricade  the  wheel;  rig  in  the  flying  jib-boom;  steer  straight  for 
the  shining  shore,  and  hear  the  shout  of  the  great  Commander  of  earth  and 
heaven  as  He  cries  from  the  shrouds:  "To  him  that  overcometh,  will  I  give  to 
eat  of  the  tree  of  life  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  Paradise  of  God." 


29 


Wnt^  jcrC  il^^  ^^^^^ 


ANCIENT    WARRIORS    IN    ARMED    PANOPLY,  AND    THE    STRIFE     OF    BROTHER    AGAINST 

BROTHER.-THE   GREAT    REBELLION. 

b  IlylTARY  science  in  the  Bible  is  set  forth  in  a  very  inter- 
esting manner.     In  olden  times  all  the  men  between 
twenty  and  fifty  }'ears  of  age  were  enrolled  in  the 
ami}-,  and  then  a  levy  was  made  for  a  special  service. 
There  were  only  three  or  four  classes  exempt — those 
who  had  built  a  house  and  had  not  occupied  it;  those 
who  had  planted  a  garden  and  had  not  reaped  the 
fruit  of  it;  those  who  were  engaged  to  be  married  and  yet  had 
not  led  the  bride  to  the  altar;  those  who  were  yet  in  the  first  year 
of  wedded  life;  those  who  were  so  nervous  that  they  could  not 
look  upon  an  enemy  but  they  fled,  and  could  not  look  upon  blood 
but  the}^  fainted. 

EARLY  WEAPONS  OF  WARFARE. 


The  army  was  in  three  divisions — the  centre,  and  right  and 
left  wings.  The  weapons  of  defence  were  helmet,  shield,  breast- 
plate, buckler.  The  weapons  of  offence  were  sword,  spear, 
javelin,  arrow,  catapult — which  was  merely  a  bow  swung  by  machinery,  shoot- 
ing arrows  at  vast  distances;  great  arrows,  one  arrow  as  large  as  several  men 
could  lift,  and  ballista,  which  was  a  sling  slung  by  machinery,  hurling  great 
rocks  and  large  pieces  of  lead  vast  distances.  The  shields  were  made  of  woven 
willow-work,  with  three  thicknesses  of  hide,  and  a  loop  inside  through  which 
the  arm  of  the  warrior  might  be  thrust;  and  when  these  soldiers  were  march- 
ing to  attack  an  enemy  on  the  level  all  these  shields  touched  each  other, 
making  a  wall  moving  but  impenetrable;  and  then  when  they  attacked  a  fort- 
ress and  tried  to  capture  a  battlement  this  shield  was  lifted  over  the  head  so  as 
to  resist  the  falling  missiles.  The  breastplate  was  made  of  two  pieces  of  leather, 
brass  covered,  one  piece  falling  over  the  back.  At  the  side  of  the  warrior  the  two 
pieces  fastened  with  buttons  or  clasps.  The  bows  were  so  stout  and  stiff  and 
strong  that  warriors  often  challenged  each  other  to  bend  one.  The  strings  of  the 
bow  were  made  from  the  sinews  of  oxen.  A  case  like  an  inverted  pyramid  was 
fastened  to  the  back,  that  case  containing  the  arrows,  so  that  when  the  warrior 

(450) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


451 


wanted  to  use  an  arrow  he  would  put  his  arm  over  his  shoulder  and  pull  forth  the 
arrow  for  the  fight.  The  ankle  of  the  foot  had  an  iron  boot.  When  a  wall  was 
to  be  assaulted  a  battering-ram  was  brought  up.  A  battering-ram  was  a  great 
beam  swung  on 


chains  in  equi- 
librium. The 
battering-ram 
would  be 
brought  close 
up  to  the  wall 
and  then  a 
great  number 
of  men  would 
take  hold  of 
this  beam, 
push  it  back 
as  far  as  they 
could  and  then 
let  go,  and  the 
beam  became  a 
great  swinging 
pendulum  of 
destruction. 

Twenty  or 
fort}'  men 
would  stand  in 
a  movable  tow- 
er on  the  back 
of  an  elephant, 
the  elephant 
made  drunk 
with  wine,  and 
then  headed 
toward  the  en- 
emj',  and  what 
with  the  hea\'>' 
feet    and    the  siege  of  tyre. 

swinging  proboscis  and  the  poisoned  arrows  shot  from  the  movable  tower,  the 
destruction  was  appalling.  War  chariots  were  in  vogue  and  they  were  on  two 
wheels  so  they  could  easily  turn.     A  sword  was  fastened   to  the  pole  between  the 


452  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

horses,  so  when  they  went  ahead  the  sword  thrust  and  when  they  turned  around 

it  would  mow  down.    The  armies  carried  flags  beautifully  embroidered.    The  tribe 

of  Judah  carried  a  flag  embroidered  with  a  lion;  tribe  of  Reuben,  embroidered  with 

a  man;  tribe  of  Dan,  embroidered  with  cherubim.     The  noise  of  the  host  as  they 

moved  on  was  overwhelming.     What  with  the  clatter  of  shields  and  the  rumbling 

of  wheels  and  the  shouts  of  the  captains,  and  the  vociferations  of  the  entire  host,  the 

prophet  says  it  was  like  the  roaring  of  the  sea.     Because  the  arts  of  war  have  been 

advancing  all  these  3'ears  you  are  not  to  conclude  that  these  armies  of  olden  times 

were  uncontrollable  mobs.      I  could  quote  you  four  or  five  passages  of  vScripture 

showing  you  that  they  were  thoroughly  drilled;  they  marched  step  to  step,  shoulder 

to  shoulder. 

FOREIGN   NATIONS  JEALOUS  OF  US. 

Nothing  could  be  more  important  than  a  great  national  encampment.  Un- 
drilled  troops  can  never  stand  before  those  which  are  drilled.  At  a  time  when 
other  nations  are  giving  such  care  to  military  tactics,  it  behooves  this  nation  to 
•lack  nothing  in  skill.  We  shall  never  have  another  war  between  North  and 
South.  The  old  decayed  bone  of  contention,  American  slaver}^  has  been  cast 
out,  although  here  and  there  a  depraved  politician  takes  it  up  to  see  if  he  can 
gnaw  something  off  of  it.  We  are  floating  off  further  and  further  from  the  possi- 
bility of  sectional  strife,  but  about  foreign  invasion  I  am  not  so  sure.  There  is 
absolutely  no  room  on  this  continent  for  any  other  nation.  I  have  been  across  the 
country  again  and  again,  and  I  know  that  we  have  not  a  half-inch  of  ground  for 
the  gouty  foot  of  foreign  despotism  to  stand  on.  I  do  not  know  but  that  a  half- 
dozen  nations,  envious  of  our  prosperity,  may  want  to  give  us  a  wrestle.  During 
our  Civil  War  there  were  two  or  three  nations  that  could  hardly  keep  their  hands 
off  of  us.  It  is  very  easy  to  pick  national  quarrels,  and  if  our  nation  escapes  it 
much  longer  it  will  be  the  exception.  If  a  foreign  foe  should  come,  we  want  men 
like  those  of  181 2,  and  like  those  who  fought  on  both  sides  in  1862.  We  want 
them  all  up  and  down  the  coast,  Pulaski  and  Fort  Sumter  in  the  same  chorus  of 
thunder  as  Fort  Lafayette  and  Fort  Hamilton,  men  who  will  not  only  know  how 
to  fight,  but  how  to  die.  When  such  a  time  comes,  if  it  ever  does  come,  the  gen- 
eration on  the  stage  of  action  will  say:  "  My  country  will  care  for  my  family  as 
the}'  did  in  the  soldiers'  asylums  for  the  orphans  in  the  Civil  War,  and  ni}'  coun- 
try will  honor  ni}-  dust  as  it  honors  those  who  preceded  me  in  patriotic  sacrifice, 
and  once  a  j-ear  at  any  rate,  on  Decoration  Day,  I  .shall  be  resurrected  into  the 
remembrance  of  those  for  whom  I  died.      Here  I  go,  for  God  and  m}'  countr}-." 

If  foreign  foe  should  ever  come,  all  sectional  animosities  would  be  obliterated. 
Here  go  our  regiments  into  battle,  side  by  side,  15th  New  York  Volunteers,  loth 
Alabama  Cavalry,  14th  Pennsylvania  Riflemen,  loth  Massachusetts  Artillery;  7th 
South  Carolina  Sharpshooters.     I  have  no  faith  in  the  cry:   ' '  No  North,  no  South, 


WAR.  -  Ftoni  the  Painting  by  James  Drumniond. 


(453) 


454  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

no  East,  no  West. ' '  Eet  all  four  sections  keep  their  peculiarities  and  their  prefer- 
ences, each  doing  its  own  work  and  not  interfering  with  each  other;  each  of  the 
four  carr3ang  its  part  in  the  great  harmony — the  bass,  the  alto,  the  tenor,  the 
soprano  in  the  grand  march  of  the  Union. 

Contrast  the  feeling  of  sectional  bitterness  in  1862  with  the  feeling  of  sectional 
unity  in  1888.  At  the  first  date  the  South  had  banished  the  national  air,  "The 
Star-Spangled  Banner, ' '  and  the  North  had  banished  the  popular  air  of  ' '  Way 
Downi  South  in  Dixie.' '  The  Northern  people  were  "  mudsills  "  and  the  Southern 
people  were  "  white  trash."  The  more  vSouthern  people  were  killed  in  battle,  the 
better  the  North  liked  it.  The  more  Northern  people  killed  in  battle,  the  better 
the  South  liked  it.  F'or  four  ^-ears  the  head  of  Abraham  lyincoln  or  Jefferson 
Davis  would  have  been  worth  a  million  dollars,  if  delivered  on  either  side  of  the 
line.  No  need  now,  standing  in  our  pulpits  and  platforms,  of  saying  that  the 
North  and  South  did 'not  hate  each  other.  To  estimate  how  dearly  they  loved 
each  other,  count  up  the  bombshells  that  were  hurled,  and  the  carbines  that  were 
loaded,  and  the  cavalry  horses  that  were  mounted;  North  and  South  facing  each 
other  all  armed,  in  the  attempt  to  kill.  The  two  sections  not  only  marshaled  all 
their  earthly  hostilities,  but  tried  to  reach  up  and  get  hold  of  the  sword  of  heaven, 
and  the  prayer  of  the  Northern  and  Southern  pulpits  gave  more  information  to  the 
heavens  about  the  best  mode  of  settling  this  trouble  than  was  ever  used.  For 
four  3^ears  both  sides  tried  to  get  hold  of  the  Lord's  thunderbolts,  but  could  not 
quite  reach  them.  At  the  breaking  out  of  the  war  we  had  not  for  months  heard 
of  my  dear  uncle,  Samuel  J.  Talmage,  President  of  the  Oglethorpe  University,  in 
Georgia.  He  was  about  the  grandest  man  I  ever  knew,  and  as  good  as  good 
could  be.  The  first  we  heard  of  him  was  his  opening  prayer  in  the  Confederate 
Congress  in  Richmond,  which  was  reported  in  the  New  York  papers,  which  praN'er, 
if  answered,  would,  to  say  the  least,  have  left  all  his  Northern  relatives  in  very 
uncomfortable  circumstances.  The  ministry  at  the  North  prayed  one  way  and  the 
ministry  at  the  South  prayed  the  other  wa3^  No  use  in  hiding  the  fact  that  the 
North  and  the  South  cursed  each  other  with  a  withering  and  all-consuming  curse. 

WAR  CONTRASTED  WITH   PEACE. 

Beside  that  antipathy  of  war  time  I  place  the  complete  accord  of  this  time. 
Not  long  ago  a  meeting  in  New  York  was  held  to  raise  money  to  build  a  home  at 
Richmond  for  crippled  Confederate  soldiers,  the  meeting  presided  over  by  a  man 
who  lost  an  arm  and  a  leg  in  fighting  on  the  Northern  side,  and  the  leg  not  lost  so 
hurt  that  it  does  not  amount  to  much.  The  Cotton  Exhibition  held  not  long  ago 
in  Atlanta  was  attended  by  tens  of  thousands  of  Northern  people,  and  by  General 
Sherman,  who  was  greeted  with  kindness,  as  though  they  had  never  seen  him 
before.     At  the  New  Orleans  F^xhibition,   held  two  years  ago,   every  Northern 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  455 

State  was  represented.  A  thousand- fold  kindlier  feeling  after  the  war  than  before 
the  war.  No  more  use  of  gunpowder  in  this  country,  except  for  rifle  practice,  or 
Fourth  of  July  pyrotechnics,  or  a  shot  at  a  roebuck  in  the  Adirondacks.  Briga- 
dier-Generals in  the  Southern  Confederac}'  making  their  fortunes  as  lawyers  in  the 
Northern  cities.  Rivers  of  Georgia,  Alabama  and  North  Carolina  turning  mills 
of  New  England  capitalists.  The  old  lions  of  war — Fort  Sumter,  and  Moultrie, 
and  Lafayette,  and  Pickens,  and  Hamilton,  sound  asleep  on  their  iron  paws,  and 
instead  of  raising  money  to  keep  enemies  out  of  our  New  York  Harbor,  raising 
money  for  the  Bartholdi  statue  on  Bedloe's  Island,  figure  of  Liberty  with  uplifted 
torch  to  light  the  way  to  all  who  want  to  come  in.  Instead  of  war  antipathies, 
when  you  could  not  cross  the  line  between  the  contestants,  without  fighting  your 
waj'  with  keen  steel,  or  getting  through  by  passes  carefully  scrutinized  at  every  step 
by  bayonets,  you  need  onl}^  a  railroad  ticket  from  New  York  to  Charleston  or  New 
Orleans  to  go  clear  through,  and  there  is  no  use  for  any  weapon  sharper  or  stronger 
than  a  steel  pen.  Since  the  3'ears  of  time  began  their  roll  has  there  ever  been  in 
about  two  decades  such  an  overwhelming  antithesis  as  between  the  war  time  of  com- 
plete bitterness  and  this  time  of  complete  sympathj'  ? 

Contrast  also  the  domestic  life  of  those  times  with  the  domestic  life  of  these 
times.  Many  of  you  were  either  leaving  home  or  far  away  from  it,  communicating 
by  uncertain  letter.  What  a  morning  that  was  when  j-ou  left  home  !  Father  and 
mother  crying,  si-sters  crying,  3'ou  smiling  outside,  but  crying  inside.  Everybody 
nervous  and  excited.  Boys  of  the  blue  and  gray  !  whether  you  started  from  the 
banks  of  the  Hudson,  or  the  Savannah,  or  the  Androscoggin,  don't  you  remember 
the  scenes  at  the  front  door,  at  the  rail-car  window,  on  the  steamboat  landings  ? 
The  huzza  could  not  drown  out  the  suppressed  sadness.  Don't  you  remember 
those  charges  to  write  home  often,  take  good  care  of  yourself,  be  good  boys,  and  the 
good-bye  kiss  which  the}^  thought,  and  you  thought,  might  be  forever?  Then  the 
homesickness  as  you  paced  the  river  bank  on  a  starlight  night  on  picket  duty,  and 
the  sly  tears  which  you  wiped  off  when  3-ou  heard  a  group  at  the  camp-fire  singing 
the  plantation  song  about  the  old  folks  at  home.  The  dinner  of  hard-tack  on 
Thanksgiving  Day,  the  Christmas  without  any  presents,  and  the  long  nights  in 
the  hospital  so  different  from  the  sickness  when  you  were  at  home,  with  mother 
and  sister  at  the  bedside  and  the  clock  in  the  hall  giving  the  exact  moment  for  the 
medicine;  and  that  forced  march,  when  your  legs  ached,  and  your  head  ached, 
and  your  wounds  ached,  and  more  than  all,  3'our  heart  ached.  Home-sickness 
w^hich  had  in  it  a  suffocation  and  a  pang  worse  than  death.  You  never  got 
hardened  as  did  the  guardsman  in  the  Crimean  War,  who  heartlessly  wrote  home 
to  his  mother:  "  I  do  not  want  to  see  any  more  crying  letters  come  to  the  Crimea 
from  you.  Those  I  have  received  I  put  into  my  rifle,  after  loading  it,  and  have 
fired  them  at  the  Ru.ssians,  because  you  appear  to  have  a  strong  dislike  of  them. 


456  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

If  you  had  seen  as  many  killed  as  I  have  you  would  not  have  as  many  weak  ideas 

as  you  now  have. ' ' 

NEWS  FROM  THE  BATTLE. 

You  never  felt  like  that.  When  a  soldier's  knapsack  was  found  after  his 
death  in  the  American  war  there  was  generally  a  careful  package  containing  a 
Bible,  a  few  photographs  and  letters  from  home.  On  the  other  hand,  tens  of 
thousands  of  homes  waited  for  news,  parents  saying:  "  Twenty  thousand  killed  ! 
I  wonder  if  our  boy  was  among  them."  Fainting  dead  away  in  post-offices  and 
telegraph  stations.  Both  the  ears  of  God  filled  with  the  sobs  and  agonies  of 
kindred  waiting  news,  or  dropping  under  the  announcement  of  bad  news.  Speak, 
swamps  of  the-Chickahominy,  and  midnight  lagoons  and  fire-rafts  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  gunboats  before  Vicksburg,  and  the  weeks  of  Antietam,  and  tell  to  all 
the  mountains,  and  valleys,  and  rivers,  and  lakes  of  North  and  South,  jeremiads 
of  war  times  that  have  never  been  syllabled. 

Beside  that  domestic  perturbation  and  home-sickness  of  those  days  put  the 
sweet  domesticity  of  to-da)^  The  only  camp-fire  you  now  ever  sit  at  is  the  one 
kindled  in  stove,  or  furnace,  or  hearth.  Instead  of  a  half  ration  of  salt  pork,  a 
repast  luxuriant  because  partaken  of  by  loving  family  circle  and  in  secret  con- 
fidence. Oh  !  now  I  see  whom  those  letters  were  for,  the  letters  5^ou,  the  young 
soldier,  took  so  long  in  your  tent  to  write,  and  that  you  were  so  particular  to  put 
in  the  mail  without  any  one  seeing  you,  lest  j-ou  be  teased  by  our  comrades. 
God  spared  you  to  get  back,  and  though  the  old  people  have  gone  you  have  a 
home  of  your  own  construction,  and  5''ou  often  contrast  those  awful  absences,  and 
filial,  and  brotherly,  and  loverly  heart-breaks  with  your  present  residence,  which 
is  the  dearest  place  you  will  find  this  side  of  heaven.  The  place  where  your 
children  were  born  is  the  place  where  you  want  to  die.  To  write  the  figures  of  1862 
I  set  up  four  crystals — crystals  of  tears.  To  write  the  figures  of  1888  I  stand  up 
four  members  of  your  household — figures  of  rosy  cheeks  and  flaxen  hair — if  I  can 
get  them  to  stand  still  long  enough. 

Contrast  also  the  religious  opportunities  of  twenty  years  ago  with  now. 
Often  on  the  march  from  Sunday  morn  till  night,  or  commanded  b)'  ofiicers  who 
considered  the  names  of  God  and  Christ  of  no  use  except  to  swear  by.  Some- 
times the  drum-head  the  pulpit,  and  you  standing  in  heat  or  cold,  all  the  sur- 
roundings of  military  life  having  a  tendency  to  make  you  reckless.  No  privacy 
for  prayer  or  Bible  reading.  No  sound  of  church  bells.  Sabbath  spent  far  away 
from  the  place  w^iere  you  were  brought  up.  Now  the  choicest  sanctuaries,  easy 
pew,  all  Christian  surroundings,  the  air  full  of  God  and  Christ,  and  heaven  and 
doxology.  Three  mountains  lifting  themselves  into  the  holy  light — Mount  Sinai 
thundering  its  law.  Mount  Calvary  pleading  the  sacrifice,  Mount  Pisgah  dis- 
playing the  Promised  Land. 


PEACE. — From  the  Painting  by  James  Drummond. 


(457) 


458  THP:  pathway  OF  IJFE. 

Contrast  of  national  condition:  1862,  spending  money  by  the  millions  in 
devastation  of  property  and  life;  1888,  the  finances  so  reconstructed  that  all  the 
stock  gamblers  of  Wall  street  combined  cannot  make  a  national  panic;  1862, 
surgeons  of  the  land  setting  broken  bones,  and  amputating  gangrened  limbs,  and 
studying  gunshot  fractures,  and  inventing  easy  ambulances  for  the  wounded  and 
dying;  1888,  surgeons  giving  their  attentions  to  those  in  casualty  of  agriculture, 
of  commerce  or  mechanical  life,  the  rushing  of  the  ambulance  through  our  streets, 
not  suggesting  battle,  but  quick  relief  of  some  one  fallen  in  peaceful  industries; 
1862,  35,000,000  inhabitants  in  this  land;  1888,  60,000,000;  1862,  wheat  about 
80,000,000  bushels;  1888,  the  wheat  will  be  about  500,000,000  bushels;  1S62 
Pacific  coast  five  weeks  from  the  Atlantic;  1888,  for  three  reasons — Union  Pacific, 
Southern  Pacific  and  Northern  Pacific — only  seven  days  across.  Look  at  the 
long  line  of  churches,  universities,  asylums  and  houses  with  which  during  the 
last  few  years  this  land  has  been  decorated. 

THE  BURIED   HEROES. 

Living  soldiers  of  the  North  and  South,  take  a  new  and  special  ordination  at 
each  season  of  the  year,  to  garland  the  sepulchres  of  your  fallen  comrades. 
Nothing  is  too  good  for  their  memories.  Turn  all  the  private  tombs  and  the 
national  cemeteries  into  gardens.  Ye  dead  of  Malvern  Hill,  and  Cold  Harbor, 
and  Murfreesboro,  and  Manassas  Junction,  and  Cumberland  Gap,  and  field 
hospital,  receive  these  floral  offerings  of  the  living  soldiers. 

But  they  shall  come  again,  all  the  dead  troops.  We  sometimes  talk  about 
earthly  military  reviews,  such  as  took  place  in  Paris  in  the  time  of  Marshal  Ney, 
in  London  in  the  time  of  Wellington,  and  in  our  own  land,  but  what  tame  things 
compared  with  the  final  review,  when  all  the  armies  of  the  ages  shall  pass  for 
divine  and  angelic  inspection.  St.  John  says  the  armies  of  heaven  ride  on  white 
horses,  and  I  don't  know  but  many  of  the  old  cavalry  horses  of  earthly  battle, 
that  were  wounded  and  worn  out  in  service,  may  have  resurrection.  It  would  be 
only  fair  that,  raised  up  and  ennobled,  they  would  be  resurrected  for  the  grand 
review  of  the  judgment  day.  It  would  not  take  any  more  power  to  reconstruct 
their  bodies  than  to  reconstruct  ours,  and  I  should  be  very  glad  to  see  them 
among  the  white  horses  of  Apocalyptic  vision.  Hark  to  the  trumpet  blast,  the 
reveille  of  the  last  judgment.  They  come  up — all  the  armies  of  all  lands  and  all 
centuries,  on  whichever  side  they  fought,  whether  for  freedom  or  despotism,  for 
the  right  or  the  wrong.  They  come  !  They  come  !  Darius,  and  Cyrus,  and 
Sennacherib,  and  Joshua,  and  David,  leading  forth  the  armies  of  Scriptural  times; 
Hannibal  and  Hamilcar  leading  forth  the  armies  of  the  Carthaginians;  Victor 
Ematmel  and  Garibaldi  leading  on  the  armies  of  the  Italians;  Tamerlane  and 
Ghengis  Khan  followed  by  the  armies  of  Asia;  Gustavus  Adolphus,  and  Ptolemy 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  1,1  Fli. 


459 


Philopater,  and  Xerxes,  and  Alexander,  and  Semiramis,  and  Washington,  leading 
battalion  after  battalion.  The  dead  American  armies  of  1776,  and  1812,  and 
1,000,000  of  Northern  and  Southern  dead  in  our  Civil  War — they  come  up;  they 
pass  on  in  review.  The  6,000,000  fallen  in  Napoleonic  battles;  the  12,000,000 
Germans  fallen  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War;  the  15,000,000  fallen  in  the  war  under 
Sesostris;  the  20,000,000  fallen  in  the  wars  of  Justinian;  the  25,000,000  fallen  in 
Jewish  w^ars;  the  80,000,000  fallen  in  the  Crusades;  the  180,000,000  fallen  in  the 
wars  with  Saracens  and  Turks;  the  35,000,000,000  estimated  to  have  fallen  in 
battle — enough,  according  to  one  statistician,  if  they  stood  four  abreast,  to  reach 
clear  around  the  earth  442  times. 

But  we  shall  have  time  to  see  them  pass  in  review  before  the  throne  of  judg- 
ment, the  cavalrymen,  the  artillerymen,  the  spearmen,  the  infantry,  the  sharp- 
shooters, the  gunners,  the  sappers,  the  miners,  the  archers,  the  skirmishers,  men 
of  all  colors,  of  all  epaulets,  of  all  standards,  of  all  weaponry,  of  all  countries. 
Let  the  earth  be  especially  balanced  to  bear  their  tread.  Forward  !  Forward  ! 
Let  the  orchestra  of  the  heavenly  galleries  play  the  grand  march,  joined  b}-  all 
the  fifers,  drummers  and  military  bands  that  ever  sounded  victory  or  defeat  at 
Kylau  or  Borobino,  Marathon  or  Thermopylae,  Bunker  Hill  or  Yorktown,  Solferino 
or  Balaklava,  Sedan  or  Gettysburg,  from  the  time  w^hen  Joshua  halted  astronomy 
above  Gibeon  and  Ajalon  till  the  last  man  surrendered  to  Garnet  Wolseley  at 
Tel-el-Kebir.  Nations,  companies,  battalions,  ages,  centuries  and  the  universe  ! 
Forward  in  the  grand  review  of  the  judgment !  Forward  !  Gracious  and  eternal 
God !  On  that  day  may  it  be  found  that  we  are  all  marching  in  the  right  regi- 
ment and  that  we  carried  the  right  standard,  and  that  we  fought  under  the  right 
commander,  all  heaven,  some  on  amethystine  battlement  and  others  standing  in 
the  shining  gates,  some  on  pearly  shore  and  others  on  turreted  heights,  giving  us 
the  resounding  million-voiced  cheer:   "  Lo,  him  that  overcometh  !" 


MORAL  ILLUSTRATIONS  TAKEN   FROM  THE  CHASE. 

UNTING  is  a  sport  of  our  day;  but  in  the  lands  and  the  times 
infested  with  wild  beasts,  it  was  a  matter  of  life  or  death  with 
the  people.  It  was  very  different  from  going  out  on  a  sunshiny 
afternoon  with  a  patent  breechloader,  to  shoot  reed-  birds  on  the 
flats,  when  Pollux,  and  Achilles,  and  Diomedes  went  out  to 
clear  the  land  of  lions,  and  tigers,  and  bears.  The  Bible  sets 
forth  Nimrod  as  a  hero,  when  it  presents  him  wdth  broad 
shoulders,  and  shaggy  apparel,  and  sun-browned  face,  and  arm 
bunched  with  muscle — "  a  mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord."  I  think  he 
used  the  bow  and  arrow  with  great  success  practicing  archery. 

I  have  thought  if  it  is  such  a  grand  thing  and  such  a  brave  thing  to 
clear  wild  beasts  out  of  a  country,  if  it  is  not  a  better  and  braver  thing 
to  hunt  down  and  destroy  those  great  evils  of  society  that  are  stalking 
the  land  with  fierce  eye,  bloody  paw,  and  sharp  tusk,  and  quick  spring. 
How  much  awkward  Christian  work  there  is  done  in  the  world  !  How 
many  good  people  there  are  who  drive  souls  away  from  Christ,  instead 
of  bringing  them  to  Him  ! — religious  blunderers  who  upset  more  than  they  right. 
Their  gun  has  a  crooked  barrel  and  kicks  as  it  goes  off.  They  are  like  a  clumsy 
comrade  who  goes  along  with  skillful  hunters;  at  the  very  moment  he  ought  to  be 
most  quiet  he  is  cracking  an  alder  or  falling  over  a  log,  and  frightening  away  the 
^ame. 

Truman  Osborne,  one  of  the  evangelists  who  went  through  this  countr^^  some 
years  ago,  had  a  wonderful  art  in  the  right  direction.  He  came  to  my  father's 
house  one  day,  and  while  we  were  all  seated  in  the  room,  he  said:  "  Mr.  Talmage, 
are  all  your  children  Christians?"     Father  said:   "  Yes,  all  but  De  "Witt." 

Then  Truman  Osborne  looked  down  into  the  fire-place,  and  began  to  tell  a 
story  of  a  storm  that  came  on  the  mountains,  and  all  the  sheep  were  in  the  fold; 
but  there  was  one  lamb  outside  that  perished  in  the  storm.  Had  he  looked  me  in 
the  eye,  I  should  have  been  angered  when  he  told  me  that  story;  but  he  looked  into 
the  fire-place,  and  it  was  so  pathetically  and  beautifully  done  that  I  never  found 
any  peace  until  I  was  sure  I  was  inside  the  fold,  where  the  other  sheep  are. 

(460) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE.  461 

ARCHERS  OF  OLDEN  TIMES. 

The  archers  of  old  times  studied  their  art.  They  were  very  precise  in  the 
matter.  The  old  books  gave  special  directions  as  to  how  the  archer  should  go  and 
as  to  what  an  archer  should  do.  He  must  stand  erect  and  firm,  his  left  foot  a  little 
in  advance  of  his  right  foot.  With  his  left  hand  he  must  take  hold  of  the  bow  in 
the  middle,  and  then  with  the  three  fingers  and  the  thumb  of  his  right  hand  he 
should  lay  hold  of  the  arrow  and  affix  it  to  the  string — so  precise  was  the  direction 
given.  But  how  clumsy  we  are  about  religious  work.  How  little  skill  and  care 
we  exercise  !  How  often  our  arrows  miss  the  mark  !  Oh,  that  we  might  leara 
the  art  of  doing  good  and  become  "  mighty  hunters  before  the  lyord  !" 

In  the  first  place,  if  you  want  to  be  effectual  in  doing  good,  you  must  be  very 
sure  of  your  weapon.  There  was  something  very  fascinating  about  the  archery 
of  olden  times.  Perhaps  you  do  not  know  what  they  could  do  with  the  bow  and 
arrow.  Why  the  chief  battles  fought  by  the  English  Plantagenets  were  with  the 
long  bow.  They  would  take  the  arrow  of  polished  wood,  feather  it  with  the 
plume  of  a  bird,  and  then  it  would  fly  from  the  bow-string  of  plaited  silk.  The 
broad  fields  of  Agincourt,  and  Sol  way  Moss,  and  Neville's  Cross,  heard  the  loud 
thrum  of  the  archer's  bow-string. 

Now,  my  Christian  readers,  we  have  a  mightier  weapon  than  that.  It  is  the 
arrow  of  the  gospel;  it  is  a  sharp  arrow;  it  is  a  straight  arrow;  it  is  feathered  from 
the  wing  of  the  dove  of  God's  Spirit;  it  flies  from  a  bow  made  out  of  the  wood  of 
the  cross.  As  far  as  I  can  estimate  or  calculate,  it  has  brought  down  400,000,000- 
souls.  Paul  knew  how  to  bring  the  notch  of  that  arrow  on  to  that  bow-string, 
and  its  whir  was  heard  through  the  Corinthian  theatres,  and  through  the  court- 
room, until  the  knees  of  Felix  knocked  together.  It  was  that  arrow  that  stuck  in 
lyUther's  heart  when  he  cried  out:  "  Oh,  my  sins  !  Oh,  my  sins  !"  If  it  strike  a 
man  in  the  head,  it  kills  his  skepticism;  if  it  strike  him  in  the  heel,  it  will  turn 
his  step;  if  it  strike  him  in  the  heart,  he  throws  up  his  hands,  as  did  one  of  old 
when  wounded  in  the  battle,  crying:   "  O  Galilean,  Thou  hast  conquered." 

In  the  armory  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  there  are  old  corselets  which  show 
that  the  arrows  of  the  English  used  to  go  through  the  breastplate,  through  the 
body  of  the  warrior,  and  out  through  the  backplate.  What  a  symbol  of  that 
gospel  which  is  sharper  than  a  two-edged  sword,  piercing  to  the  dividing  asunder 
of  soul  and  body,  and  of  the  joints  and  marrow. 

If  you  want  to  succeed  in  gospel  hunting  you  must  have  courage.  If  the 
hunter  stand  with  trembling  hand  or  shoulder  that  flinches  with  fear,  instead  of 
his  taking  the  catamount,  the  catamount  takes  him.  What  would  become  of  the 
Greenlander  if,  when  out  hunting  for  the  bear,  he  should  stand  shivering  with 
terror  on  an  iceberg  ?  What  would  have  become  of  Du  Chaillu  and  lyivingstone 
in  the  African  thicket  with  a  faint  heart  and  a  weak  knee  ?     When  a  panther 


462  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

comes  within  twenty  paces  of  you,  and  has  its  eye  on  you,  and  it  has  squatted  for 
the  fearful  spring,  "  Steady  there." 

THE  MONSTER  OF  INTEMPERANCE. 

Courage,  O  ye  spiritual  hunters  !  There  are  great  monsters  of  iniquity  prowl- 
ing all  around  about  the  community.  Shall  w^e  not,  in  the  strength  of  God,  go 
forth  and  combat  them  ?  We  not  only  need  more  heart,  but  more  backbone. 
What  is  the  Church  of  God  that  it  should  fear  to  look  in  the  eye  any  transgression  ? 
There  is  the  Bengal  tiger  of  drunkenness  that  prowls  around,  and  instead  of 
attacking  it,  how  many  of  us  hide  under  the  church  pew  or  the  communion  table  ? 
There  is  so  much  invested  in  it  we  are  afraid  to  assault  it — millions  of  dollars  in 
barrels,  in  vats,  in  spigots,  in  cork-screws,  in  gin  palaces  with  marble  floors,  and 
Italian-top  tables,  and  chased  ice-coolers;  and  in  the  strychnine,  and  the  logwood, 
and  the  tartaric  acid,  and  the  nux  vomica,  that  go  to  make  up  our  "pure" 
American  drinks.  I  looked  with  wondering  eyes  on  the  "  Heidelberg  tun."  It 
is  the  great  liquor  vat  of  Germany,  which  is  said  to  hold  800  hogsheads  of  wine, 
and  only  three  times  in  100  years  has  it  been  filled.  But  as  I  stood  and  looked  at 
it  I  said  to  myself:  "  That  is  nothing — 800  hogsheads.  Why,  our  American  \'at 
holds  4,500,000  barrels  of  strong  drinks,  and  we  keep  300,000  men  with  nothing  to 
do  but  to  see  that  it  is  filled." 

Oh  !  to  attack  this  great  monster  of  intemperance,  and  the  kindred  monsters 
of  fraud  and  uncleanness,  requires  you  to  rally  all  your  Christian  courage.  Through 
the  press,  through  the  pulpit,  through  the  platform,  you  must  assault  it.  Would  to 
God  th^t  all  our  American  Christians  would  band  together  for  holy  Christian  reform. 

Oh,  how  many  good  men  are  being  led  astray  by  this  monster  of  iniquity, 
this  giant  curse  of  the  age  and  of  civilization,  this  destroyer  of  home,  this  blaster 
of  hope,  this  vicegerent  of  Satan.  I  could  give  you  the  historj'^  in  a  minute  of  one 
of  the  best  friends  I  ever  had.  Outside  of  my  own  family  I  never  had  a  better 
friend.  He  welcomed  me  to  my  home  at  the  West.  He  was  of  splendid  personal 
appearance,  but  he  had  an  ardor  of  soul  and  a  warmth  of  affection  that  made  me 
love  him  like  a  brother.  I  saw  men  coming  out  of  the  saloons  and  gambling  hells, 
and  they  surrounded  my  friend  and  they  took  him  at  the  weak  point,  his  social 
nature,  and  I  saw  him  going  down,  and  I  had  a  fair  talk  with  him — for  I  never 
yet  saw  a  man  you  could  not  talk  with  on  the  subject  of  his  habits,  if  you  talk  with 
him  in  the  right  way.  I  said  to  him:  "  Why  don't  you  give  up  your  bad  habits 
and  become  a  Christian  ?"  I  remember  now  just  how  he  looked,  leaning  over  his 
counter,  as  he  replied:  "  I  wish  I  could.  Oh,  sir,  I  should  like  to  be  a  Christian, 
but  I  have  gone  so  far  astray  I  can't  get  back." 

So  the  time  went  on.  After  a  while  the  daj'  of  sickness  came.  I  was 
summoned  to  his  sick  bed.     I  hastened.     It  took  me  but  a  very  few  moments  to 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


463 


get  there.  I  was  surprised  as  I  went  in.  I  saw  him  in  his  ordinary  dress,  fully 
cressed,  lying  on  top  of  the  bed.  I  gave  him  my  hand,  and  he  seized  it  convul- 
sively and  said:  "  Oh,  how  glad  I  am  to  see  you  !  Sit  down  there."  I  sat  down 
and  he  said:  "  Mr.  Talmage,  just  where  you  sit  now  my  mother  sat  last  night. 
vShe  has  been  dead  twenty  years.     Now,  I  don't  want  you  to  think  I  am  out  of  my 


A    MODERN   CLUB-ROOM. 

mind,  or  that  I  am  superstitious;  but,  sir,  she  sat  there  last  night  just  as  certainly 
as  you  sit  there  now — the  same  cap  and  apron  and  spectacles.  It  was  ni}-  old 
mother— she  sat  there. ' '  Then  he  turned  to  his  wafe  and  said:  ' '  I  wish  you  would 
take  these  strings  off  the  bed;  somebody  is  wrapping  strings  around  me  all  the 
time.     I  wish  you  would  stop  that  annoyance."     She  said:    "There  is  nothing 


464  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

here."  Then  I  saw  it  was  delirium.  He  said:  "Just  where  you  sit  now  my 
mother  sat,  and  she  said:  '  Roswell,  I  wish  you  would  do  better — I  wish  you  would* 
do  better.'  I  said:  '  Mother,  I  wish  I  could  do  better;  I  try  to  do  better,  but  I 
can't.  Mother,  you  used  to  help  me;  why  can't  you  help  me  now?'  And,  sir, 
I  got  out  of  bed,  for  it  was  a  reality,  and  I  went  to  her,  and  threw  my  arms  around 
her  neck,  and  I  said:  '  Mother,  I  will  do  better,  but  you  must  help;  I  can't  do 
this  alone.'  "  I  knelt  down  and  prayed.  That  night  his  soul  went  to  the  Lord 
that  made  it. 

Arrangements  were  made  for  the  obsequies.  The  question  was  raised  whether 
they  should  bring  him  to  the  church.  Somebody  said:  "  You  cannot  bring  such 
a  dissolute  man  as  that  into  the  church. ' '  I  said:  ' '  You  will  bring  him  in  church ; 
he  stood  by  me  when  he  was  alive,  and  I  will  stand  by  him  when  he  is  dead. 
Bring  him."  As  I  stood  in  the  pulpit  and  saw  them  carrying  the  body  up  the 
aisle,  I  felt  as  if  I  could  weep  tears  of  blood. 

On  one  side  of  the  pulpit  sat  his  little  cliild  of  eight  3'ears,  a  sweet,  beautiful 
little  girl  that  I  have  seen  him  hug  convulsively  in  his  better  moments.  He  put 
on  her  all  jewels,  all  diamonds,  and  gave  her  all  pictures  and  toys,  and  then  he 
would  go  away  as  if  hounded  by  an  evil  spirit,  to  his  cups  and  the  house  of  shame — 
a  fool  to  the  correction  of  the  stocks.  She  looked  up  wonderingly.  She  knew  not 
what  it  all  meant.  She  was  not  old  enough  to  understand  the  sorrow  of  an 
orphan  child. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  pulpit  sat  the  men  who  had  ruined  him;  they  were 
the  men  who  had  poured  the  wormwood  into  the  orphan's  cup;  they  were  the  men 
who  had  bound  him  hand  and  foot.  I  knew  them.  How  did  they  seem  to  feel  ? 
Did  they  weep?  No.  Did  they  say,  "What  a  pity  that  so  generous  a  man 
should  be  destroyed  ?' '  No.  Did  they  sigh  repentingly  over  what  they  had  done  ? 
No;  they  sat  there,  looking  as  vultures  look  at  the  carcass  of  a  lamb  whose  heart 
they  had  ripped  out.  So  they  sat  and  looked  at  the  coffin  lid,  and  I  told  them  the 
judgment  of  God  upon  those  who  had  destroyed  their  fellows.  Did  they  reform  ? 
I  was  told  they  were  in  the  places  of  iniquity  that  night  after  my  friend  was  laid 
in  Oakwood  Cemetery,  and  they  blasphemed  and  they  drank.  Oh,  how  merciless 
men  are,  especially  after  they  have  destroyed  you.  Do  not  look  to  men  for  com- 
fort or  help.  Look  to  God.  But  there  is  a  man  who  will  not  reform.  He  says: 
' '  I  won' t  reform. ' '    Well,  then,  how  many  acts  are  there  in  a  tragedy?    I  believe  five. 

Act  I. — A  young  man  starting  off  from  home.  Parents  and  sisters  weeping 
to  have  him  go.  Wagon  rising  over  the  hill.  Farewell  kiss  flung  back.  Ring 
the  bell  and  let  the  curtain  fall. 

Act  II. — The  marriage  altar.  Full  organ.  Bright  lights.  Long  white  veil 
ti ailing  through  the  aisle.  Prayer  and  congratulation,  and  exclamation  of  "  How 
well  she  looks  ! " 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


465 


Act  III. — A  woman  waiting  for  staggering  steps.  Old  garments  stuck  into 
the  broken  window  pane.  Marks  of  hardship  on  the  face,  The  biting  of  the 
nails  of  bloodless  fingers.  Neglect,  and  cruelty,  and  despair ,  Ring  the  bell  and 
let  the  curtain  drop. 

Act  IV. — Three  graves  in  a  dark  place — grave  of  the  child  that  died  for  lack 
of  medicine,  grave  of  the  wife  that  died  of  a  broken  heart,  grave  of  the  man  that 
died  of  dissipation. 
Oh  !  what  a  blast- 
ed heath  with 
three  graves! 
Plenty  of  weeds, 
but  no  flowers. 
Ring  the  bell  and 
let  the  curtain 
drop. 

Act  v.— A  de- 
stroyed soul's 
eternity.  No 
light;  no  music; 
no  hope;  anguish 
coiling  its  serpents 
around  the  heart; 
blackness  of  dark- 
ness forever.  But 
I  cannot  look  any 
longer.  Woe ! 
woe  !  I  close  my 
eyes  to  this  last 
act  of  the  tragedy. 
Quick  !  quick  ! 
ring  the  bell  and 
let  the  curtain 
drop. 

"Rejoice,    O  the  two  roads. 

young  man,  in  thy  youth,  and  let  thy  heart  cheer  thee  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth;  but  know  thou  that  for  all  these  things  God  will  bring  thee  into  judg- 
ment." "There  is  a  way  that  seemeth  right  to  a  man,  but  the  end  thereof  is 
death."     Be  thou  a  mighty  hunter  against  such  ravening  beasts  of  iniquity. 

I  think  it  was  in  1793  that  there  went  out  from   Lucknow,  India,  under   the 
sovereign,  the  greatest  hunting  party  that  was  ever  projected.     There  were  10,000 
30 


466  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

armed  men  in  that  hunting  party.  There  were  camels,  and  horses,  and  elephants. 
On  some,  princes  rode,  and  royal  ladies,  under  exquisite  housing,  and  500  coolies 
waited  upon  the  train,  and  the  desolate  places  of  India  were  invaded  by  this  excur- 
sion, and  the  rhinoceros,  and  deer,  and  elephant,  fell  under  the  stroke  of  the  sabre 
and  bullet.  After  a  while  the  party  brought  back  trophies  worth  50,000  rupees. 
Laving  left  the  wilderness  of  India  ghastly  with  the  slain  bodies  of  wild  beasts. 

Would  to  God  that  instead  of  here  and  there  a  straggler  going  out  to  fight 
cliese  great  monsters  of  iniquity  in  our  country,  the  million  membership  of  our 
churches  would  band  together  and  hew  in  train  these  great  crimes  that  make  the 
land  frightful  with  their  roar,  and  are  fattening  upon  the  bodies  and  souls  of  immor- 
tal men.  Who  is  ready  for  such  a  party  as  that  ?  Who  will  be  a  mighty  hunter 
for  the  Lord  ? 

If  Mithridates  liked  hunting  so  well  that  for  seven  years  he  never  went  in- 
doors, what  enthusiasm  ought  we  to  have  who  are  hunting  for  immortal  souls  ? 
If  Domitian  practiced  archery  until  he  could  stand  a  boy  down  in  the  Roman 
amphitheatre,  with  a  hand  out,  the  fingers  outstretched,  and  then  the  king  could 
shoot  an  arrow  between  the  fingers  without  wounding  them,  to  what  drill  and 
what  practice  ought  not  we  subject  ourselves  in  order  to  become  spiritual  archers 
and  ' '  mighty  hunters  before  the  Lord  ! ' ' 

But  let  me  say  you  will  never  work  any  better  than  you  pray.     The  old 

archers  took  the  bow,  put  one  end  of  it  down  beside  the  foot,  elevated  the  other 

end,  and  it  was  the  rule  that  the  bow  should  be  just  the  size  of  the  archer;  if  it 

was  just  his  size  then  he  would  go  into  the  battle  with  confidence.     Let  me  say 

that  your  power  to  project  good  in  the  world  will  correspond  exactly  to  your  own 

spiritual  stature. 

THE   SINNER'S    DEATH    LEAP. 

There  is  a  forest  in  Germany,  a  place  they  call  the  "  Deer  Leap  " — two  crags 
about  eighteen  yards  apart,  between  a  fearful  chasm.  This  is  called  the  "  Deer 
Leap,"  because  once  a  hunter  was  on  the  track  of  a  deer;  it  came  to  one  of  these 
crags;  there  was  no  escape  for  it  from  the  pursuit  of  the  hunter,  and  in  utter 
despair  it  gathered  itself  up,  and  in  the  death  agony  attempted  to  jump  across. 
Of  course  it  fell,  and  was  dashed  to  death  on  the  rocks  far  beneath.  Here  is  a 
path  to  heaven.  It  is  plain;  it  is  safe.  Jesus  marks  it  out  for  every  man  to  walk 
in.  But  here  is  a  man  who  says,  "  I  won't  walk  in  that  path;  I  will  take  my 
own  way . ' ' 

He  comes  up  until  he  confronts  the  chasm  that  divides  his  soul  from  heaven. 
Now  his  last  hour  has  come,  and  he  resolves  that  he  will  leap  that  chasm,  from  the 
heights  of  earth  to  the  heights  of  heaven.  Stand  back  now  and  give  him  full 
swing,  for  no  soul  ever  did  that  successfully.  Let  him  try.  Jump  !  Jump  !  He 
misses  the  mark  and  goes  down,  depth  below  depth,  "  destroyed  without  remedy." 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


467 


Men  !  angels  !  devils  !  what  shall  we  call  that  place  of  awful  catastrophe  ?     L,et  it 
be  known  forever  as  "  The  Sinner's  Death  Leap." 

It  is  said  that  when  Charlemagne's  host  was  overpowered  by  three  armies  of 
the  Saracens  in  the  Pass  of  Roncesvalles,  his  warrior,  Roland,  in  terrible  earnest- 
ness, seized  a  trumpet,  and  blew  it  with  such  terrific  effect  that  the  opposing  army- 
reeled  back  with  terror;  but  at  the  third  blast  of  the  trumpet  it  broke  in  two. 

I  see  your  soul  fiercely  assailed  by  all  the  powers  of  earth  and  hell.     I  put 
the  mightier  trumpet  of  the  gospel  to  my  lips,  and  I  blow  it  three  times. 
Blast  First — "  Whosoever  will,  let  him  come." 
Blast  Second — "  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He  may  be  found." 
Blast  third — "  Now  is  the  accepted  time;  now  is  the  day  of  salvation." 
Does  not  the  host  of  your  sins  fall  back  ?     But  the  trumpet  does  not,  like  that 
of  Roland,  break  in  two.     As  it  was   handed  down  to  us  from  the  lips  of  our 
fathers,  we  hand  it  down  to  the  lips  of  our  children,  and  tell  them  to  sound  it 
when  we  are  dead,  that  all  the  generations  of  men  may  know  that  our  God  is  a 
pardoning  God,  a  sympathetic  God,  a  loving  God;  and  that  more  to  Him  than  the 
anthems  of  heaven  is  the  joy  of  seeing  the  wanderer  return. 

Dr.  Prime,  in  his  book  of  wonderful  interest,  entitled  "  Around  the  World," 
describes  a  tomb  in  India  of  marvelous  architecture.  Twenty  thousand  men  were 
twenty-two  years  in  erecting  that  and  the  building  around  it.  Standing  at  ^hat 
tomb,  if  you  speak  or  sing,  after  you  have  ceased  you  hear  the  echo  coming  from 
a  height  of  150  feet.  It  is  not  like  other  echoes.  The  sound  is  drawn  out  in 
sweet  prolongation,  as  though  the  angels  of  God  were  chanting  on  the  wing. 

How  many  souls  of  my  readers,  in  the  tomb  of  sin,  will  lift  up  the  voice  of 
penitence  and  prayer?  If  now  they  would  cry  unto  God,  the  echo  would  drop 
from  afar — not  struck  from  the  marble  cupola  of  an  earthly  mausoleum;  but 
sounding  back  from  the  warm  hearts  of  angels,  flying  with  the  news;  for  there  is 
joy  among  the  angels  of  God  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth. 


THE  EVILS  OF  A  MALEVOLENT  DISPOSITION,  AND   HOW  TO  CORRECT  THEM. 

Y^'f^HAT  a  pillow  embroidered  of  all  colors  hath  the  dying  da}^  ! 
The  cradle  of  clouds  from  which  the  sun  rises  is  beautiful 
enough,  but  it  is  surpassed  by  the  many-colored  mausoleum 
in  which  at  evening  it  is  buried.  Sunset  among  the  moun- 
tains !  It  almost  takes  one's  breath  away  to  recall  the  scene. 
^  The  long  shadows  stretching  over  the  plain  make  the  glory 

^V^'**^/  of  the  departing  light,  on  the  tip-top  crags  and  struck  aslant 

through  the  foliage,  the  more  conspicuous.  Saffron  and  gold,  purple  and  crimson 
commingled.  All  the  castles  of  cloud  in  conflagration.  Burning  Moscows  on  the 
sky.  Hanging  gardens  of  roses  at  their  deepest  blush.  Banners  of  vapor,  red  as  if 
from  carnage,  in  the  battle  of  elements.  The  hunter  among  the  Adirondacks  and 
the  Swiss  villager  among  the  Alps  know  what  is  a  sunset  among  the  mountains. 
After  a  storm  at  sea  the  rolling  grandeur  into  which  the  sun  goes  down  to  bathe 
at  nightfall  is  something  to  make  weird  and  splendid  dreams  out  of  for  a  lifetime. 
Alexander  Smith  in  his  poem  compares  the  sunset  to  "  the  barren  beach  of  hell," 
but  this  wonderful  spectacle  of  nature  makes  me  think  of  the  burnished  wall  of 
heaven.  Paul  in  prison  writing  remembers  some  of  the  gorgeous  sunsets  among 
the  mountains  of  Asia  Minor,  and  how  he  had  often  seen  the  towers  of  Damascus 
blaze  in  the  close  of  the  Oriental  days,  and  he  flashes  out  that  memory  when  he 
says:   "  Let  not  the  sun  go  down  upon  your  wrath." 

LIFE'S   EXASPERATIONS. 

Sublime  and  all-suggestive  duty  for  people  then  and  people  now.  Forgive- 
ness before  sundown.  He  who  never  feels  the  throb  of  indignation  is  imbecile. 
He  who  can  walk  among  the  injustices  of  the  world,  inflicted  upon  himself  and 
others,  without  flush  of  cheek,  or  flash  of  eye,  or  agitation  of  nature,  is  either  in 
sympathy  with  wrong  or  semi-idiotic.  When  Ananias,  the  high-priest,  ordered 
the  constables  of  the  court-room  to  smite  Paul  in  the  mouth,  Paul  fired  up  and 
said:   "  God  shall  smite  thee,  thou  whited  wall." 

It  all  depends  on  what  you  are  mad  at  and  how  long  the  feeling  lasts  whether 
anger  is  right  or  wrong.  Life  is  full  of  exasperations.  Saiil  after  David,  vSuccoth 
after  Gideon,  Korah  after  Moses,  the  Pasquins  after  Augustus,  the  Pharisees  after 

(468) 


THE  I.AST  DAY  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MOORE. — From  the  painting  by  J.  R.  Herbert. 

sir  Thomas  Moore,  born  in  I^ondon,  1480,  on  becoming  of  age  obtained  a  seat  in  Parliament,  brought  first 
into  prominent  notice  by  opposing  subsidy  demand  of  Henry  VII.  He  was  knighted  in  1515,  became  Treasurer 
of  the  Exchequer  in  1520,  and  in  1524  was  chosen  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  became  Chancellor  in 
15^0,  during  which  time  he  was  such  a  strong  Catholic  partisan  that  he  opposed  the  divorce  of  Henry  VIII.  from 
Catharine  of  Aragon,  for  which  he  was  sent  to  the  Tower,  where  he  languished  awhile,  and  was  then  brought 
to  the  block.  He  is  charged  by  some  with  having  persecuted  Protestants,  though  Erasmus  testifies  to  the  con- 
trary.    During  his  imprisonment  and  to  the  last,  his  daughter  spent  much  of  her  time  in  the  dungeon  with  him. 

(469) 


470  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

Christ,  Henry  VHI.  after  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  every  one  has  had  his  pursuers, 
and  we  are  swindled,  or  belied,  or  misrepresented,  or  persecuted,  or  in  some  way 
wronged,  and  the  danger  is  that  healthful  indignation  shall  become  baleful  spite, 
and  that  our  feelings  settle  down  into  a  prolonged  outpouring  of  temper  dis- 
pleasing to  God  and  ruinous  to  ourselves.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  man 
who  preserves  good  temper  will  come  out  ahead.  An  old  essayist  says  the  cele- 
brated John  Henderson,  of  Bristol,  England,  was  at  a  dining  party  where  political 
excitement  ran  high  and  the  debate  got  angry,  and  while  Henderson  was  speaking, 
his  opponent,  unable  to  answer  his  argument,  dashed  a  glass  of  wine  in  his  face, 
when  the  speaker  deliberately  wiped  the  liquid  from  his  face  and  said:  "  This,  sir, 
is  a  digression;  now,  if  you  please,  for  the  main  argument."  While  worldly 
philosophy  could  help  but  very  few  to  such  equipoise  of  spirit,  the  grace  of  God 
could  help  any  man  to  such  a  triumph,  "  Impossible,"  you  say,  "  I  would  have 
left  the  table  in  anger  or  have  knocked  the  man  down." 

A  FAITH  CURE. 

But  I  have  come  to  believe  that  nothing  is  impossible  if  God  helps,  since  what 
I  saw  at  Beth-Shan  Faith-Cure  in  London,  England,  two  summers  ago.  While 
the  religious  service  was  going  on.  Rev.  Dr.  Boardman,  glorious  man  !  since  gone 
to  his  heavenly  rest,  was  telling  the  sick  people  present  that  Christ  was  there  as  of 
old  to  heal  all  diseases,  and  that,  if  they  would  only  believe,  their  sickness  would 
depart.  I  saw  a  woman  near  me,  with  hand  and  arm  twisted  of  rheiunatism,  and 
her  wrist  was  fiery  with  inflammation,  and  it  looked  like  those  cases  of  chronic 
rheumatism  which  we  have  all  seen  and  sympathized  with,  cases  beyond  all  human 
healing.  At  the  preacher's  reiteration  of  the  words:  "  Will  you  believe?  Do  you 
believe?  Do  you  believe  now  ?"  I  heard  this  poor  woman  say  with  an  emphasis 
which  sounded  through  the  building,  "  I  do  believe."  And  then  she  laid  her 
twisted  arm  and  hand  out  as  straight  as  your  arm  and  hand,  or  mine.  If  I  had 
seen  one  rise  from  the  dead  I  would  not  have  been  much  more  thrilled.  Since 
then  I  believe  that  God  will  do  anything  in  answer  to  our  prayer  and  in  answer  to 
our  faith,  and  He  can  heal  our  bodies,  and  if  our  soul  is  all  twisted,  and  misshapen 
of  revenge,  and  hate,  and  inflamed  with  sinful  proclivity  He  can  straighten  that 
also  and  make  it  well  and  clean. 

A  boy  in  Sparta,  having  stolen  a  fox,  kept  him  under  his  coat,  and  though 
the  fox  was  gnawing  his  vitals,  he  submitted  to  it  rather  than  expose  his  misdeed. 
Many  a  man  with  a  smiling  face  has  under  his  jacket  an  animosity  that  is  gnaw- 
ing away  the  strength  of  his  body  and  the  integrity  of  his  soul.  Better  get  rid  of 
that  hidden  fox  as  soon  as  possible.  There  are  hundreds  of  domestic  circles  where 
that  which  is  most  needed  is  the  spirit  of  forgiveness.  Brothers  apart,  and  sisters 
apart,  and  parents  and  children  apart.     Solomon  says  a  brother  oflfended  is  harder 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE.  471 

to  be  won  than  a  strong  city.  Are  there  not  enough  sacred  memories  of  j'our 
childhood  to  bring  you  together?  The  Rabbins  recount  how  that  Nebuchad- 
nezzar's son  had  such  a  spite  against  his  father  that  after  he  was  dead  he  had  his 


THE  YOUNG  PRINCES  IN  THE  TOWER. — From  the  Painting  by  Paul  Dclaroche. 

The  princes  were  Edward  V.  and  Richard,  Duke  of  York,  sons  of  Edward  IV.;  being  ir.  rightful  succession 
to  the  throne  of  England,  they  were  secretly  murdered  in  the  Tower  by  their  unnatural  uncle,  who,  upon 
assuming  the  crown,  took  the  title  Richard  III. 

father  burned  to  ashes,  aud  then  put  the  ashes  into  four  sacks  and  tied  them  to 
four  eagles'  necks  which  flew  away  in  opposite  directions.     And  there  are  now 


472  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

domestic  antipathies  that  seem  forever  to  have  scattered  all  parental  memories  to 
the  four  winds  of  heaven.  How  far  the  eagles  fly  with  those  sacred  ashes  !  The 
hour  of  sundown  makes  to  that  family  no  practical  suggestion.  Thomas  Carlyle, 
in  his  biography  of  Frederick  the  Great,  says  the  old  king  was  told  by  the  con- 
fessor he  must  be  at  peace  with  his  enemies  if  he  wanted  to  enter  heaven.  Then 
he  said  to  his  wife,  the  queen:  "  Write  to  your  brother  after  I  am  dead  that  I  for- 
give him."  Roloff,  the  confessor,  said:  "Her  Majesty  had  better  write  to  him 
immediately."  "  No,"  said  the  king,  "  after  I  am  dead;  that  will  be  safer."  So 
he  let  the  sun  of  his  earthly  existence  go  down  upon  his  wrath.  Richard  the  III. 
was  so  angered  by  a  taunt  that  the  young  princes  stood  between  him  and  the 
throne,  that  he  ordered  them  murdered  though  they  were  his  nephews,  and  spent 
the  rest  of  his  days  deploring  the  act. 

Oh,  my  reader,  associate  the  sunset  with  your  magnanimous,  out-and-out, 
unlimited  renunciation  of  all  hatreds  and  forgiveness  of  all  foes.  I  admit  it  is  the 
most  difficult  of  all  graces  to  practice,  and  at  the  start  you  may  make  a  complete 
failure,  but  keep  on  in  the  attempt  to  practice  it.  Shakespeare  wrote  ten  plays 
before  he  reached  Hamlet,  and  seventeen  before  he  reached  Merchant  of  Venice, 
and  twenty-eight  plays  before  he  reached  Macbeth.  And  gradually  you  will  come 
from  the  easier  graces  to  the  most  difficult.  Beside  that,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  per- 
sonal determination  so  much  as  the  laying  hold  of  the  almighty  arm  of  God,  who 
will  help  us  to  do  anything  we  ought  to  do.  Remember  that  in  all  personal  con- 
troversies the  one  least  to  blame  will  have  to  take  the  first  step  at  pacification,  if  it 
be  ever  effective.  The  contest  between  JSschines  and  Aristippus  resounds  through 
history,  but  Aristippus,  who  was  least  to  blame,  went  to  ^schines  and  said: 
' '  Shall  we  not  agree  to  be  friends  before  we  make  ourselves  the  laughing  stock 
of  the  whole  country?"  And  ^schines  said,  "Thou  are  a  far  better  man  than 
I,  for  I  began  the  quarrel;  but  thou  hast  been  the  first  in  healing  breach." 
And  they  were  always  friends  afterwards.  So  let  the  one  of  you  that  is  least  to 
blame  take  the  first  step  toward  conciliation.  The  one  most  in  the  wrong  will 
never  take  it.  How  different  was  the  termination  of  the  feud  between  Richard  III. 
and  Henry  VII.,  that  was  carried  on  for  years  at  frightful  loss,  though  the  former 
had  no  shadow  of  right  for  continuing  it.  The  evil  at  last  comes  upon  all  evil, 
doers  as  it  did  to  Richard.  Oh,  it  makes  one  feel  splendidly  to  be  able,  by  God's 
help,  to  practice  unlimited  forgiveness.  It  improves  one's  body  and  soul.  It 
will  make  you  measure  three  or  four  more  inches  around  the  chest  and  improve 
your  respiration  so  that  you  can  take  a  deeper  and  longer  breath.  It  improves 
the  countenance  by  scattering  the  gloom  and  brightening  the  forehead,  and 
loosening  the  pinched  look  about  the  nostril  and  lip,  and  makes  you  somewhat 
like  God  Himself 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE.  473 


THE  DUTY. 


He  is  omnipotence,  and  we  cannot  copy  that.     He  is  independent  of  all  the 
universe,  and  we  cannot  copy   that.     He  is  creative,  and  we  cannot  copy  that. 


LORD  STANLEY  BRINGING  THE  CROWN  OF  RICHARD  TO  RICHMOND  AFTER  THE    BATTLE 

OF  BOSWORTH. 

The  battle  of  Bosworth  was  fought  August  22,  1485,  between  Richard  III.  and  the  Earl  of  Richmond  fafter- 
wards  Henry  VII. 1.  In  thi?  decisive  contest  the  former  lost  both  his  crown  and  life,  which  terminated  a 
long-continued  struggle  for  supremacy  between  the  rival  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster. 


474  'THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

He  is  omnipresent,  and  we  cannot  copy  that.  But  He  forgives  with  a  broad  sweep  all 
faults,  and  all  neglects,  and  all  insults,  and  all  wrong- doing;  and  in  that  we  may 
copy  Him  with  mighty  success.  Go,  harness  that  sublime  action  of  your  soul  to 
an  autumnal  sunset,  the  hour  when  the  gate  of  heaven  opens  to  let  the  day  pass 
into  the  eternities,  and  some  of  the  glories  escape  this  way  through  the  brief  open- 
ing. We  talk  about  the  Italian  sunsets,  and  sunset  amid  the  Apennines,  and  sun- 
set amid  the  Cordilleras.  But  I  will  tell  you  how  you  may  see  a  grander  sunset 
than  any  mere  lover  of  nature  ever  beheld;  that  is  by  flinging  into  it  all  your 
hatreds  and  animosities,  and  let  the  horses  of  fire  trample  them,  and  the  chariots  of 
fire  roll  over  them,  and  the  spearmen  of  fire  stab  them,  and  the  beach  of  fire  con- 
sume them,  and  the  billows  of  fire  overwhelm  them.  The  sublimest  thing  God 
does  is  the  sunset.  The  sublimest  thing  you  can  do  is  forgiveness.  Along  the 
glowing  banks  of  this  coming  eventide  let  the  divine  and  the  human  be  concurrent. 

Hardly  anything  affects  me  so  much,  in  the  uncovering  of  ancient  Pompeii, 
as  the  account  of  the  soldier  who,  after  the  city  had  for  many  centuries  been 
covered  with  the  ashes  and  scoriae  of  Vesuvius,  was  found  standing  in  his  place 
on  guard,  hand  on  spear  and  helmet  on  head.  Others  fled  at  the  awful  sub- 
mergement,  but  the  explorer,  1700  years  after,  found  the  body  of  that  brave 
fellow  in  right  position.  And  it  will  be  a  grand  thing  if,  when  our  last  moment 
comes,  we  are  found  in  right  position  toward  the  world,  as  well  as  in  right  posi- 
tion toward  God,  on  guard  and  unfrightened  by  the  ashes  from  the  mountain  of 
death.  I  do  not  suppose  that  I  am  any  more  of  a  coward  than  most  people,  but 
I  declare  to  you  that  I  would  not  dare  to  sleep  one  night  if  there  were  any  being 
in  all  the  earth  with  whom  I  would  not  gladly  shake  hands,  lest,  during  the  night 
hours,  my  spirit  dismissed  to  other  realms,  I  should,  because  of  my  unforgiving 
spirit,  be  denied  divine  forgiveness. 

"  But,"  you  say,  ' '  I  have  more  than  I  can  bear;  too  much  is  put  upon  me  and 
I  am  not  to  blame  if  I  am  somewhat  revengeful  and  unrelenting."  Then  I  think 
of  the  little  child  at  the  moving  of  some  goods  from  a  store.  The  father  was 
putting  some  rolls  of  goods  on  the  child's  arm,  package  after  package,  and  some 
one  said:  "That  child  is  being  overloaded,  and  so  much  ought  not  to  be  put 
upon  her,"  when  the  child  responded  :  "  Father  knows  how  much  I  can  carry," 
and  God,  our  Father,  will  not  allow  too  much  imposition  on  His  children.  In 
the  day  of  eternity  it  will  be  found  you  had  not  one  annoyance  too  nlan3^  not  one 
exasperation  too  many,  not  one  outrage  too  many.  Your  heavenly  Father  knows 
how  much  you  can  carry. 

When  Mme.  Sontag  began  her  musical  career  she  was  hissed  ofi"  the  stage  at 
Vienna  by  the  friends  of  her  rival,  Amelia  Steininger,  who  had  already  begun  to 
decline  through  her  dissipation.  Years  passed  on,  and  one  day  Mme.  Sontag,  in 
her  glory,  was  riding  through  the  streets  of  Berlin,  when  she  saw  a  little  child 


(475) 


476  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

leading  a  blind  woman,  and  she  said:  "Come  here,  my  little  child,  come  here. 
Who  is  that  you  are  leading  by  the  hand  ?' '  And  the  little  child  replied:  ' '  That's 
my  mother;  that's  Amelia  Steininger.  She  used  to  be  a  great  singer,  but  she  lost 
her  voice  and  she  cried  so  much  about  it  that  she  lost  her  eyesight. "  "  Give  my 
love  to  her,"  said  Mnie.  Sontag,  "and  tell  her  an  old  acquaintance  will  call  on 
her  this  afternoon." 

The  next  week  in  Berlin  a  vast  assemblage  gathered  at  a  benefit  for  that 
poor  blind  woman,  and  it  was  said  that  Mme.  Sontag  sang  that  night  as  she  had 
never  sung  before.  And  .she  took  a  skilled  oculist,  who  in  vain  tried  to  give 
eyesight  to  the  poor  blind  woman.  Until  the  day  of  Amelia  Steininger's  death, 
Mme.  Sontag  took  care  of  her,  and  her  daughter  after  her.  That  was  what  the 
queen  of  song  did  for  her  enemy. 

But,  oh,  hear  a  more  thrilling  story  still.     Blind  immortal,  poor  and  lost, 

thou,  who,  when  the  world   and  Christ  were  rivals  for  thy  heart,  didst  hiss  thy 

lyord  away — Christ    comes  now  to  give  thee  sight,  to  give  thee  a  home,  to  give 

thee  heaven.     With  more  than  a  Sontag' s  generosity  He  comes  now  to  meet 

your   need.     With   more   than   a   Sontag' s   music    He   comes   to  plead  for  thy 

deliverance. 

A  PROVIDER  AND   DEFENDER. 

We  should  not  let  the  sun  go  down  on  our  wrath,  because  it  is  of  little 
importance  what  the  world  says  of  you.  or  does  to  you  when  you  have  the  aflSuent 
God  of  the  sunset  as  your  provider  and  defender.  People  talk  as  though  it  were 
a  fixed  spectacle  of  nature  and  always  the  same.  But  no  one  ever  saw  two  sun- 
sets alike;  and  if  the  world  has  existed  6000  years  there  have  been  about  2,190,- 
000  sunsets;  each  of  them  as  distinct  from  all  the  other  pictures  in  the  gallery  of 
the  sky  as  Titian's  "Last  Supper,"  Rubens'  "Descent  from  the  Cross," 
Raphael's  "Transfiguration"  and  Michael  Angelo's  "Last  Judgment"  are 
distinct  from  each  other.  If  that  God,  of  such  infinite  resources  that  He  can  put 
on  the  wall  of  the  sky  each  night  more  than  the  Louvre,  and  the  Luxembourg, 
and  the  Vatican,  and  the  Dresden,  and  Venetian  galleries  all  in  one,  is  my  God 
and  your  God,  our  provider  and  protector,  what  is  the  use  of  our  worrying  about 
any  human  antagonism  ?  If  we  are  misinterpreted,  the  God  of  the  many-colored 
sunset  can  put  the  right  color  on  our  action.  If  He  can  afford  to  hang  such 
masterpieces  over  the  outside  wall  of  heaven  and  have  them  obliterated  in  an 
hour,  He  must  be  very  rich  in  resources  and  can  put  us  through  in  safety.  If 
all  the  garniture  of  the  western  heavens  at  eventide  is  but  the  upholstry  of 
one  of  the  windows  of  our  future  home,  what  small  business  for  us  to  be 
chasing  enemies  ! 

Mohammed  said:  "  The  sword  is  the  key  of  heaven  and  hell;  a  drop  of  blood 
shed  is  better  than  fasting,  and  wounds  in  the  day  of  judgment  are  resplendent  as 


OI.IVER  CROMWELL  AT  THE  DEATH-BED  OF  HIS  DAUGHTER. 
Oliver  Cromwell,  son  of  a  baronet,  was  elected  to  the  brief  Parliament  of  162S,  and,  by  encouraging  the 
Puritan  sentiment,  he  became  a  member  of  the  Long  Parliament,  and  also  secured  the  more  influential  position 
of  lieutenant-general  of  the  House,  by  which  he  brought  a  large  force  of  the  military  under  his  arm,  and  was 
able  to  crush  all  opposition  by  making  the  army  predominant  over  Parliament.  Heat  length  brought  Charles 
I  to  the  block,  and  on  the  i6th  of  December,  1653,  took  the  title  of  Lord  Protector,  thus  becoming  virtually  King 
of  Britain.  The  death  of  his  daughter  Elizabeth  so  affected  him  that  his  strong  heart  broke,  and  one  month 
after,  on  September  3,  1658,  being  the  anniversaries  of  his  two  greatest  victories,  at  Dunbar  and  Worcester,  he 
followed  her  to  the  grave. 

(477) 


478 


THK  PATHWAY  OF  I^IFE. 


vermilion,  and  odoriferous  as  musk."  The  same  sentiment  was  echoed  by  Crom- 
well, but  the  death  of  his  daughter  changed  his  opinion,  and  my  readers,  in  the 
last  day  we  will  all  find  just  the  opposite  to  be  true,  and  that  the  sword  never 
unlocks  heaven,  and  that  He  who  heals  wounds  is  greater  than  he  who  makes 
them,  and  that  on  the  same  ring  are  two  keys:  God's  forgiveness  of  us  and  our 
forgiveness  of  enemies,  and  those  two  keys  unlock  Paradise. 

THE  CLOCK  OF  EARTHLY  EXISTENCE. 

And  now  I  wish  for  all  of  you  a  beautiful  sunset  in  j'our  earthly  existence. 
With  some  of  you  it  has  been  a  long  day  of  trouble,  and  with  others  of  you  it 
will  be  far  from  calm.  When  the  sun  rose  at  six  o'clock  it  was  the  morning  of 
youth,  and  a  fair  day  was  prophesied,  but  by  the  time  noonday  of  mid-life  had 
come  and  the  clock  of  your  earthly  existence  had  struck  twelve,  cloud  racks 
gathered  and 'tempest  bellowed  in  the  track  of  tempest.  But  as  the  evening  of 
old  age  approaches  I  pray  God  the  skies  may  brighten  and  the  clouds  be  piled  up 
into  pillars  as  of  celestial  temples  to  which  3'ou  go,  or  move  as  with  mounted 
cohorts  come  to  take  you  home.  And  as  you  sink  out  of  sight  below  the  horizon 
may  there  be  a  radiance  of  Christian  example  lingering  long  after  you  are  gone, 
and  on  the  heavens  be  written  in  letters  of  sapphire,  and  on  the  waters  in  letters 
of  opal,  and  on  the  hills  in  letters  of  emerald:  "  Thy  sun  shall  no  more  go  down, 
neither  shall  thy  moon  withdraw  itself,  for  the  Lord  shall  be  thine  everlasting 
light,  and  the  days  of  thy  mourning  shall  be  ended."  So  shall  the  sunset  of  earth 
become  the  sunrise  of  heaven, 


EVIDENCES  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  A  FINAL  RESURRECTION. 

jBOUT  1853  Easter  mornings  have  wakened  the  earth.  In  France 
for  three  centuries  the  almanacs  made  the  year  begin  at  Easter, 
until  Charles  IX.  made  the  year  begin  at  January  i.  In  the 
Tower  of  London  there  is  a  royal  pay-roll  of  Edward  I.,  on 
which  there  is  an  entry  of  eighteen  pence  for  400  colored  and 
pictured  Easter  eggs,  with  which  the  people  sported.  In  Russia, 
slaves  were  fed  and  alms  were  distributed  on  Easter. 

Ecclesiastical  councils  met  at  Pontus,  at  Gaul,  at  Rome,  at  Achaia, 
to  decide  the  particular  day,  and  after  a  controversy,  more  animated  than 
gracious,  decided  it,  and  now  through  all  Christendom,  in  some  way,  the 
first  Sunday  after  the  full  moon  which  happens  upon  or  next  after  March  ?.  i , 
is  filled  with  Easter  rejoicing. 

The  Royal  Court  of  the  Sabbaths  is  made  up  of  fifty-two.      Fifty -one 
^  ^       are  princes  in  the  royal  household,  but  Easter  is  queen.     She  wears  a  richer 
^         diadem  and  sways  a  more  jeweled  sceptre,  and  in  her  smile  nations  are 
irradiated.     She  seems  to  step  out  of  the  snowbank  rather  than  the  con- 
servatory, come  out  of  the  North  instead  of  the  South,  out  of  the  Arctic  rather 
than  the  Tropics,  dismounting   from  the  icy  equinox,  but  welcome  this  queenty 
day,  holding  high  up  in  her  right  hand  the  wrenched-oflf  bolt  of  Christ's  sepulchre, 
and  holding  high  up  in  her  left  hand  the  key  to  all  the  cemeteries  in  Christendom. 
It  is  an  exciting  thing  to  see  an  army  routed  and  flying.     They  run  each 
other  down.     They  scatter  everything  valuable  in  the  track.     Unwheeled  artil- 
lery, hoof  of  horse  on  breast  of  wounded  and  dying  man.     You  have  read  of  the 
French  falling  back  from  Sedan,  or  Napoleon's  track  of  90,000  corpses  in  the 
snowbanks  of  Russia,  or  of  the  retreat  of  our  own  armies  from  Manassas,  or  of 
the  five  kings  tumbling  over  the  rocks  of  Beth-horon  with  their  armies,  while 
the  hail-storms  of  heaven  and  the  swords  of  Joshua's  host  struck  them  with 

their  fury. 

THE  BLACK  GIANT. 

But  there  is  a  worse  discomfiture.     It  seems  that  a  black  giant  proposed  to 
conquer  the  earth.     He  gathered   for   his   host  all  the  aches,  and  pains,  and 

(479) 


48o  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

malarias,  and  cancers,  and  distempers,  and  epidemics  of  the  ages.  He  marched 
them  down,  drilling  them  in  the  northeast  wind  and  amid  the  slush  of  tempests. 
He  threw  up  barricades  of  grave-mounds.  He  pitched  tent  of  charnel  house. 
Some  of  the  troops  marched  with  slow  tread  commanded  by  consumption,  some 
in  double-quick,  commanded  by  pneumonias.  Some  he  took  by  long  besiegement 
of  evil  habit,  and  some  by  one  stroke  of  the  battle-axe  of  casualty.  With  bony 
hand  he  pounded  at  the  door  of  hospitals  and  sick-rooms,  and  won  all  the  victories 
in  all  the  great  battlefields  of  all  the  five  continents.  Forward,  march,  the  con- 
queror of  conquerors,  and  all  the  generals,  and  commanders-in-chief,  and  all 
presidents,  and  kings,  and  sultans,  and  czars  drop  under  the  feet  of  his  war- 
charger. 

But  one  Christmas  night  his  Antagonist  was  born.  As  most  of  the  plagues, 
and  sicknesses,  and  despotisms  come  out  of  the  East,  it  was  appropriate  that  the 
new  Conqueror  should  come  out  of  the  same  quarter.  Power  is  given  Him  to 
awaken  all  the  fallen  of  all  the  centuries  and  of  all  lands,  and  marshal  them 
against  the  black  giant.  Fields  have  already  been  won,  but  the  last  day  of  the 
world's  existence  will  see  the  decisive  battle.  When  Christ  shall  lead  forth  His 
two  brigades,  the  brigade  of  the  risen  dead,  and  the  brigade  of  the  celestial  host, 
the  black  giant  will  fall  back,  and  the  brigade  from  the  riven  sepulchres  will  take 
him  from  beneath,  and  the  brigade  of  descending  immortals  will  take  him  from 
above,  and  death  shall  be  swallowed  up  in  victory. 

The  old  braggart  that  threatened  the  conquest  and  demolition  of  the  planet 
has  lost  his  throne,  has  lost  his  sceptre,  has  lost  his  palace,  has  lost  his  prestige, 
and  the  one  word  written  over  all  the  gates  of  mausoleum,  and  catacomb,  and 
necropolis;  on  cenotaph  and  sarcophagus,  on  the  lonely  khan  of  the  Arctic  explorer 
and  on  the  catafalque  of  great  cathedral;  written  in  capitals  of  azalea  and  calla- 
lily,  written  in  musical  cadence,  written  in  doxology  of  great  assemblages;  written 
on  the  sculptured  door  of  the  family  vault,  is  "Victory."  Coronal  word,  emban- 
nered  word.  Apocalyptic  word,  chief  word  of  the  triumphal  arch  under  which 
conquerors  return. 

THE  ABOLITION   OF  DEATH. 

The  Bastile  was  a  formidable  fortress  of  wrong  for  a  long  time,  but  the 
common  people  at  last  laid  siege  to  and  took  it,  and  emptied  its  dungeons. 
Victory  !  Word  shouted  at  Culloden,  and  Balaklava,  and  Blenheim,  at  Megiddo 
and  Solferino,  at  Marathon,  where  the  Athenians  drove  back  the  Medes;  at 
Poictiers,  where  Charles  Martel  broke  the  ranks  of  the  Saracens;  at  Salamis, 
where  Themistocles  in  the  great  sea-fight  confounded  the  Persians,  and  at  the 
door  of  the  eastern  cavern  of  chiseled  rock,  where  Christ  came  out  through  a  recess 
and  throttled  the  King  of  Terrors,  and  put  him  back  in  the  niche  from  which  the 


(48 1) 


482  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

Celestial  Conqueror  had  just  emerged.  Aha  !  when  the  jaws  of  the  eastern  mauso- 
leum took  down  the  black  giant,  "  Death  was  swallowed  up  in  victory."  I  pro- 
claim the  abolition  of  death" 

The  old  antagonist  is  driven  back  into  mythology,  with  all  the  lore  about 
Stygian  ferry  and  Charon  with  oar  and  boat.  Melrose  Abbey  and  Kenil worth 
Castle  are  no  more  in  ruins  than  is  the  sepulchre.  We  shall  have  no  more  to  do 
with  death  than  we  have  with  the  cloak-room  at  a  Governor's  or  President's  levee. 
We  stop  at  such  cloak-room  and  leave  in  charge  of  a  servant  our  overcoat,  our 
overshoes,  our  outward  apparel,  that  we  may  not  be  impeded  in  the  brilliant  round 
of  the  drawing-room. 

Well,  my  readers,  when  we  go  out  of  this  world  we  are  going  to  a  King's  ban- 
quet and  to  a  reception  of  monarchs,  and  at  the  door  of  the  tomb  we  leave  the  cloak 
of  flesh  and  the  wrappings  with  which  we  meet  the  storms  of  this  world.  At  the 
close  of  an  earthly  reception,  under  the  brush  and  broom  of  the  porter,  the  coat  or 
hat  may  be  handed  to  us  better  than  when  we  resigned  it,  and  the  cloak  of 
humanity  will  finally  be  returned  to  us  improved,  and  brightened,  and  purified, 
and  glorified. 

You  and  I  do  not  want  our  bodies  returned  as  they  are  now.  We  want  to  get 
rid  of  all  their  weaknesses,  and  all  their  susceptibilities  to  fatigue,  and  all  their 
slowness  of  locomotion.  They  will  be  put  through  a  chemistry  of  soil,  and  heat, 
and  cold,  and  changing  seasons,  out  of  which  God  will  reconstruct  them  as  much 
better  than  they  are  now  as  the  body  of  the  rosiest  and  healthiest  child  that  bounds 
over  the  lawn  at  Prospect  Park  is  better  than  the  sickliest  patient  in  Bellevue 
Hospital. 

But  as  to  our  soul,  we  will  cross  right  over,  not  waiting  for  obsequies,  independ- 
ent of  obituary,  into  a  state  in  every  way  better,  with  wider  room  and  velocities 
beyond  computation;  the  dullest  of  us  into  companionship  with  the  very  best 
spirits  in  their  very  best  mood,  in  the  ver}^  parlor  of  the  universe,  the  four  walls 
burnished,  and  paneled,  and  pictured,  and  glorified  with  all  the.  splendors  that  the 
infinite  God  in  all  the  ages  has  been  able  to  invent.     Victory  ! 

This  view  of  course  makes  it  of  but  little  importance  whether  we  are  cremated 
or  sepultured.  If  the  latter  is  dust  to  dust,  the  former  is  ashes  to  ashes.  If  any 
prefer  incineration  let  them  have  it  without  caricature.  The  world  may  become 
so  crowded  that  cremation  may  be  universally  adopted  by  law  as  well  as  by  general 
consent.  Many  of  the  mightiest  and  best  spirits  have  gone  through  this  process. 
Thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  God's  children  have  been  cremated — P.  P.  Bliss 
and  wife,  the  evangelistic  singers,  cremated  by  accident  at  Ashtabula  bridge; 
John  Rogers,  cremated  by  persecution;  Latimer  and  Ridley,  cremated  at  Oxford; 
Pothinus  and  Blandina,  a  slave,  and  Alexander,  a  physician,  and  their  com- 
rades, cremated  at  the  order  of  Marcus  Aurelius — at  least    100,000  of  Christ's 


THE   VII.I.AGE;  PHYSICIAN.— /v 


■om  original  Painting  by  P.  Scoppetta. 


(483) 


484  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

disciples  cremated — and  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  resurrection  of  their 
bodies. 

If  the  world  lasts  as  much  longer  as  it  has  already  been  built,  there  perhaps 
may  be  no  room  for  the  large  acreage  set  apart  for  the  resting-places,  but  that  time 
has  not  come.  Plenty  of  room  yet,  and  the  race  need  not  pass  that  bridge  of  fire 
until  it  comes  to  it.  The  most  of  us  prefer  the  old  way.  But  whether  out  of 
natural  disintegration  or  cremation  we  shall  get  that  luminous,  buoyant,  gladsome, 
transcendent,  magnificent,  inexplicable  structure  called  the  resurrection  body; 
you  will  have  it,  I  will  have  it.  I  say  to  you  to-day,  as  Paul  said  to  Agrippa: 
"  Why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing  incredible  with  you  that  God  should  raise  the 
dead." 

The  far-up  cloud,  higher  than  the  hawk  flies,  higher  than  the  eagle  flies, 
what  is  it  made  of?  Drops  of  water  from  the  Hudson,  other  drops  from  the  East 
River,  other  drops  from  a  stagnant  pool  out  on  Newark  flats — up  yonder  there, 
and  embodied  in  a  cloud,  and  the  sun  kindles  it.  If  God  can  make  such  a  lus- 
trous cloud  out  of  water  drops,  many  of  them  soiled  and  impure,  and  fetched  from 
miles  away,  can  He  not  transport  the  fragments  of  the  human  body  from  the 
earth,  and  out  of  them  build  a  radiant  body  ?  Cannot  God,  who  owns  all  the 
material  out  of  which  bones  and  muscle  and  flesh  are  made,  set  them  up  again  if 
they  have  fallen  ?  If  a  manufacturer  of  telescopes  drops  a  telescope  on  the  floor, 
and  it  breaks,  can  he  not  mend  it  again  so  you  can  see  through  it  ?  And  if  God 
drops  the  human  eye  into  the  dust,  the  eye  which  he  originally  fashioned,  can  He 
not  restore  it  ?  Ay,  if  the  manufacturer  of  the  telescope,  by  a  change  of  the  glass 
and  a  change  of  focus,  can  make  a  better  glass  than  that  which  was  originally 
constructed,  and  actually  improve  it,  do  you  not  think  the  fashioner  of  the  human 
eye  may  improve  its  sight  and  multiply  the  natural  eye  by  the  thousand-fold  addi- 
tional forces  of  the  resurrection  eye  ? 

Why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing  incredible  with  you  that  God  should  raise 
the  dead  ?  Things  all  around  us  suggest  it.  The  blossoming  woods,  where  love 
delights  to  make  his  bower,  are  re-clothed  in  beauty  with  every  spring.  Out  of 
what  grew  all  these  flowers  ? '  Out  of  the  mould  and  the  earth.  Resurrected  ! 
Resurrected  !  The  radiant  butterfly,  where  did  it  come  from  ?  The  loathsome 
caterpillar.  That  albatross  that  smites  the  tempest  with  its  wing,  where  did  it 
come  from  ?     A  senseless  shell. 

SEED-LIFE  RESURRECTED. 

Near  Bergerac,  France,  in  a  Celtic  tomb  under  a  block,  were  found  flower  seed 
that  had  been  buried  2000  years.  The  explorer  took  the  flower  seed  and  planted 
it,  and  it  came  up;  it  bloomed  in  bluebell  and  heliotrope.  Two  thousand  years 
ago  buried,  yet  resurrected  ! 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


485 


A  traveler  says  he  found  in  a  mummy -pit  in  Egypt  garden  peas  that  had  been 
buried  there  3000  years  ago.     He  brought  them  out,  and  on  the  fourth  of  June, 


ROLLING   AWAY  THE  STONE   FROM  THE   GRAVE   OF   LAZARUS. 

1844,  he  planted  them,  and  in  thirty  days  they  sprang  up.     Buried  3000  years,  yet 
resurrected  ! 

Where  did  all  this  silk  come  from — the  silk  that  adorns  your  persons  and  your 


486  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

homes  ?  In  the  hollow  of  a  staff  a  Greek  missionar}^  brought  from  China  to  Europe 
the  progenitors  of  those  worms  that  now  supply  the  silk  markets  of  many  nations. 
The  pageantry  of  bannered  host  and  the  luxurious  articles  of  commercial  emporium 
blazing  out  from  the  silk  worms.  And  who  shall  be  surprised  if  out  of  this  insig- 
nificant earthly  body,  this  insignificant  earthly  life,  our  bodies  unfold  into  some- 
thing worthy  of  the  coming  eternities. 

Put  silver  into  nitric  acid  and  it  dissolves.  Is  the  silver  gone  forever  ?  No. 
Put  in  some  pieces  of  copper  and  the  silver  reappears.  If  one  force  dissoh-es, 
another  force  organizes. 

The  insects  flew  and  the  worms  crawled  last  autumn  feebler  and  feebler,  and 
then  stopped.  They  have  taken  no  food,  they  want  none.  They  lay  dormant  and 
insensible,  but  soon  the  south  wind  will  blow  the  resurrection  trumpet,  and  the  air  and 
the  earth  will  be  full  of  them.  Do  you  not  think  that  God  can  do  as  much  for  our 
bodies  as  He  does  for  the  wasps  and  the  spiders  and  the  snails  ?  This  morning  at 
4.30  o'clock  there  was  a  resurrection.  Out  of  the  night  the  day.  Every  year 
there  is  a  resurrection  in  all  our  gardens.  Why  not  some  day  a  resurrection  amid 
all  the  graves  ? 

Ever  and  anon  there  are  instances  of  men  and  women  entranced.  A  trance 
is  death  followed  by  resurrection  after  a  few  days;  total  suspension  of  mental  power 
and  voluntary  action.  Rev.  William  Tennent,  a  great  evangelist  of  the  last 
generation,  of  whom  Dr.  Archibald  Alexander,  a  man  far  from  being  sentimental, 
wrote  in  most  eulogistic  terms — Rev.  William  Tennent  seemed  to  die.  His  spirit 
departed.  People  came  in  day  after  day  and  said:  "He  is  dead;  he  is  dead." 
But  the  soul  that  fled  returned,  and  William  Tennent  lived  to  write  out  the  expe- 
riences of  what  he  had  seen  while  his  soul  had  gone.  It  may  be  found  some  time 
that  what  is  called  suspended  animation  or  comatose  state  is  brief  death,  giving 
the  soul  an  excursion  into  the  next  world,  from  which  it  comes  back,  a  furlough 
of  a  few  hours  granted  from  the  conflict  of  life  to  which  it  must  return. 

EVIDENCE  OF  A  FINAL  RESURRECTION. 

Does  not  this  waking  up  of  men  from  trance,  and  this  waking  up  of  insects 
from  winter  lifelessness,  and  this  waking  up  of  grains  buried  3000  years  ago, 
make  it  easier  for  you  to  believe  that  your  body  and  mine  after  the  vacation  of  the 
grave  shall  rouse  and  rally,  though  there  be  3000  years  between  our  last  breath 
and  the  sounding  of  the  archangelic  reveille  ? 

Physiologists  tell  us  that  while  the  most  of  our  bodies  are  built  with  such 
wonderful  economy  that  we  can  spare  nothing,  and  the  loss  of  a  finger  is  a  hinder- 
ment,  and  the  injury  of  a  toe-joint  makes  us  lame,  still  that  we  have  two  or  three 
useless  physical  organs,  and  no  anatomist  or  physiologist  has  ever  been  able  to  tell 
what  they  are  good  for.     They  are  no  doubt  the  foundation  of  the  resurrection 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  487 

body,  worth  nothing  to  us  in  this  state,  to  be  indispensabl}'  valuable  in  the  next 
state.  The  Olympic  games  were  instituted  for  the  purpose  of  developing  every 
organ  and  sinew  of  the  body  but  even  these  did  not  discover  the  uses  of  the  spleen; 
which  gives  us  the  most  pain. 

The  Jewish  rabbis  had  only  a  hint  of  this  suggestion  when  they  said  that 
in  the  human  frame  there  was  a  small  bone  which  they  said  was  to  be  the  basis 
of  the  resurrection  body.  Perhaps  that  ma^^  have  been  a  delusion.  But  this 
thing  is  certain,  the  Christian  scientists  of  our  day  have  foiuid  out  that  there  are 
two  or  three  superfluities  of  body  that  are  something  gloriously  suggestive  of 
another  state. 

I  called  at  a  friend's  house  one  summer  day.  I  found  the  yard  all  piled  up 
with  the  rubbish  of  carpenter  and  mason's  work.  The  door  was  off.  The 
plumbers  had  torn  up  the  floor.  The  roof  was  being  lifted  in  cupola.  All  the 
pictures  were  gone,  and  the  paper-hangers  were  doing  their  work.  All  the 
modern  improvements  were  being  introduced  into  that  dwelling.  There  was  not 
a  room  in  the  house  fit  to  live  in  at  that  time,  although  a  month  before  when 
I  visited  that  house  everything  was  so  beautiful  I  could  not  have  suggested  an 
improvement.  My  friend  had  gone  with  his  family  to  the  Holy  lyand,  expecting 
to  come  back  at  the  end  of  six  months,  when  the  building  was  to  be  done.  And, 
oh  !  what  was  his  joy  when,  at  the  end  of  six  months,  he  returned  and  the  old 
house  was  enlarged  and  improved  and  glorified. 

That  is  your  body.  It  looks  well  now — all  the  rooms  filled  with  health,  and 
we  could  hardly  make  a  suggestion.  But  after  a  while  your  soul  will  go  to  the 
Holy  Land,  and  while  you  are  gone  the  old  house  of  your  tabernacle  will  be 
entirely  reconstructed  from  cellar  to  attic,  and  every  ner^-e,  and  muscle,  and  bone, 
and  tissue,  and  artery  must  be  hauled  over,  and  the  old  structure  will  be  burnished 
and  adorned  and  raised  and  cupolaed  and  enlarged,  and  all  the  improvements  of 
heaven  introduced,  and  you  will  move  into  it  on  resurrection  day. 

For  we  know  that  if  our  earthly  house  of  this  tabernacle  were  dissolved,  we 
have  a  building  of  God,  a  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens. 

MEETING  OF  BODY  AND  SOUL. 

Oh,  what  a  da}'  when  body  and  soul  meet  again  !  They  are  very  fond  of 
each  other.  Did  your  body  ever  have  pain  and  your  soul  not  pity  it  !  Or  your 
body  have  a  joy  and  your  soul  not  re-echo  it?  Or,  changing  the  question,  did 
3^our  soul  ever  have  any  trouble  and  your  body  not  sympathize  with  it  ?  grow- 
ing wan  and  weak  under  the  depressing  influence.  Or,  did  your  soul  ever 
have  a  gladness  but  your  body  celebrated  it  with  kindled  eye  and  cheek  and 
elastic  step  ?  Surely  God  never  intended  two  such  good  friends  to  be  very  long- 
separated. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


And  so  when  the  world's  last  Easter  morning  shall  come  the  soul  will 
descend,  crying,  "Where  is  my  body?"  And  the  body  will  ascend,  saying, 
"  Where  is  my  soul  ?"  And  the  Lord  of  the  resurrection  will  bring  them  together, 
and  it  will  be  a  perfect  soul  in  a  perfect  body,  introduced  by  a  perfect  Christ  into 
a  perfect  heaven. 

A  cruel  heathen  warrior  heard  Mr.  Moffat,  the  missionary,  preach  about  the 
resurrection,  and  he  said  to  the  missionary: 

' '  Will  my  father  rise  in  the  last  day  ?' ' 

"  Yes,"  said  the  missionary. 

"  Will  all  the  dead  in  battle  rise?"  said  the  cruel  chieftain. 

"Yes,"  said  the  missionary. 

"  Then,"  said  the  warrior,  "  let  me  hear  no  more  about  the  resurrection  day. 
There  can  be  no  resurrection;  there  shall  be  no  resurrection.  I  have  slain  thou- 
sands in  battle.     Will  they  rise  ?" 

Ah,  there  will  be  more  to  rise  on  that  day  than  those  want  to  see  whose 
crimes  have  never  been  repented  of.  But  for  all  others  who  allowed  Christ  to  be 
their  pardon  and  their  life  and  their  resurrection  it  will  be  a  day  of  victory. 

The  thunders  of  the  last  day  will  be  the  salvo  that  greets  you  into  harbor. 
The  lightnings  will  be  only  the  torches  of  triumphal  procession  marching  down  to 
escort  you  home.  Where  is  death  ?  What  have  we  to  do  with  death  ?  As  your 
re-united  body  and  soul  swing  off  from  this  planet  on  that  last  day  you  will  see 
deep  gashes  all  up  and  down  the  hills,  deep  gashes  all  through  the  valleys,  and 
they  will  be  the  emptied  graves,  they  will  be  the  abandoned  sepulchres,  and  then, 
for  the  first  time,  you  will  appreciate  the  full  exhilaration  of  the  words,  "  He  will 
swallow  up  death  in  victory." 


'^ixl'aci^^  i:ft  Splji^ntr^r^ 


THE  AROMA  THAT  CLUNG  TO  CHRIST'S  GARMENTS  LIKENED   UNTO   HIS  SWEET  LIFE. 

MONG  the  grand  adornments  of  the  city  of  Paris  is  the  Church 
of  Notre  Dame,  with  its  great  towers,  and  elaborated  rose- 
windows,  and  sculpturing  of  the  last  judgment,  with  the 
trumpeting  angels  and  rising  dead;  its  battlements  of  quatre- 
foil;  its  sacristy,  with  ribbed  ceiling  and  statues  of  saints. 
But  there  was  nothing  in  all  that  building  which  more  vividly 
appealed  to  my  plain  republican  tastes  than  the  costly  vest- 
ments which  laid  in  oaken  presses — robes  that  had  been 
embroidered  with  gold,  and  been  worn  by  popes  and  archbishops  on  great  occa- 
sions. There  was  a  robe  that  had  been  worn  by  Pius  VII.  at  the  crowning  of  the 
first  Napoleon,  There  was  also  a  vestment  that  had  been  worn  at  the  baptism  of 
Napoleon  II.  As  our  guide  opened  the  oaken  presses  and  brought  out  these 
vestments  of  fabulous  cost,  and  lifted  them  up,  the  fragrance  of  the  pungent 
aromatics  in  which  they  had  been  preserved  filled  the  place  with  a  sweetness  that 
was  almost  oppressive.  Nothing  that  had  been  done  in  stone  more  vividly 
impressed  me  than  these  things  that  had  been  done  in  cloth,  and  embroidery,  and 
perfume. 

But  here,  my  readers,  I  open  the  drawer  of  a  verse  in  Psalms,  which  reads, 
"  All  thy  garments  smell  of  myrrh,  and  aloes,  and  cassia,  out  of  the  ivory  palaces." 
I  look  upon  the  kingly  robes  of  Christ,  and  as  I  lift  them,  flashing  with  eternal 
jewels,  the  whole  house  is  filled  with  the  aroma  of  these  garments,  which  smell 
of  myrrh,  and  aloes,  and  cassia  out  of  the  ivory  palaces. 

The  King  steps  forth.  His  robes  rustle  and  blaze  as  He  advances.  His 
pomp,  and  power,  and  glor>'  overmaster  the  spectator.  More  brilliant  is  He  than 
Queen  Vashti  moving  amid  the  Persian  princes;  than  Marie  Antoinette  on  the 
day  when  lyouis  XVI.  put  upon  her  the  necklace  of  eight  hundred  diamonds;  than 
Catharine  when  she  appeared  before  her  ecclesiastical  judges;  than  Anne  Boleyn 
the  day  when  Henry  VIII.  welcomed  her  to  his  palace;  all  beauty  and  all  pomp 
forgotten,  while  we  stand  in  the  presence  of  this  imperial  glory.  King  of  Zion, 
King  of  earth,  King  of  heaven.  King  forever  !  His  garments,  not  worn  out,  not 
dust-bedraggled;  but  radiant,  and  jeweled,  and  redolent.  It  seems  as  if  they 
must  have  been  pressed  a  hundred  years   amid  the  flowers  of   heaven.       The 

(489) 


490 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


wardrobes  from  which  they  have  been  taken  must  have  been  sweet  with  clusters 
of  caraphire,  and  frankincense,  and  all  manner  of  precious  wood.  Do  you  not 
inhale  the  odors  ?  Ay,  ay.  They  smell  of  myrrh,  and  aloes,  and  cassia,  out  of 
the  ivory  palaces. 

THE  ODORS  OF  CHRIST'S  GARMENTS. 

Your  first  curiosity  is  to  know  why  the  robes  of  Christ  are  odorous  with 
myrrh.  This  was  a  bright-leafed  Abyssinian  plant.  It  was  trifoliate.  The 
Greeks,  Egyptians,  Romans  and  Jews  bought  and  sold  it  at  a  high  price.  The 
first  present  that  was  ever  given  to  Christ  was  a  sprig  of  myrrh,  thrown  on  His 

infantile  bed  in 
Bethlehem,  and 
the  last  gift 
that  Christ  ever 
had  was  myrrh 
pressed  into  the 
cup  of  His  cru- 
cifixion. The 
natives  would 
take  a  stone 
and  bruise  the 
tree,  and  then 
it  would  exude 
a  gum  that 
would  saturate 
all  the  ground 
beneath.  This 
gum  was  used 
for  purposes  of 
merchandise. 

One  piece  of  it  no  larger  than  a  chestnut  would  whelm  a  whole  room  with  odors.  It 
was  put  in  closets,  in  chests,  in  drawers,  in  rooms,  and  its  perfume  adhered  almost 
interminably  to  anything  that  was  anywhere  near  it.  So  when  I  read  that  Christ's 
garments  smell  of  myrrh,  I  immediately  conclude  the  exquisite  sweetness  of  Jesus. 
I  know  that  to  many  He  is  only  like  any  historical  person:  another  John  Howard; 
another  fiendish  Oberland;  another  Confucius;  a  grand  subject  for  a  painting;  an 
heroic  theme  for  a  poem;  a  beautiful  form  for  a  statue;  but  to  those  who  have 
heard  His  voice,  and  felt  His  pardon,  and  received  His  benediction.  He  is  music, 
and  light,  and  warmth,  and  thrill,  and  eternal  fragrance.  Sweet  as  a  friend 
sticking  to  you  when  all  else  betray.     lyifting  you  up  while  others  tr^'  to  push  you 


GROTTO    IN   TH]i    LUXivMBOURG    GARDENS. 


(491) 


492  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I^IFK. 

down.  Not  so  much  like  morning-glories,  that  bloom  only  when  the  sun  is 
coming  up,  nor  like  "  four-o' clocks,"  that  bloom  only  when  the  sun  is  going 
down,  but  like  myrrh,  perpetually  aromatic — the  same  morning,  noon,  and  night — 
yesterday,  to-day,  forever.  It  seems  as  if  we  cannot  wear  Him  out.  We  put  on 
Him  all  our  burdens,  and  afflict  Him  with  all  our  griefs,  and  set  Him  foremost  in 
all  our  battles,  and  yet  He  is  ready  to  lift,  and  to  sympathize,  and  to  help.  We 
have  so  imposed  upon  Him  that  one  would  think  in  eternal  affront  He  would  quit 
our  soul;  and  yet  He  addresses  us  with  the  same  tenderness,  dawns  upon  us  wuth 
the  same  smile,  pities  us  with  the  same  compassion.  There  is  no  name  like  His 
for  us.  It  is  more  imperial  than  Caesar's,  more  musical  than  Beethoven's,  more 
conquering  than  Charlemagne's,  more  eloquent  than  Cicero's.  It  throbs  with  all 
life.  It  weeps  with  all  pathos.  It  groans  with  all  pain.  It  stoops  with  all  con- 
descension. It  breathes  with  all  perfume.  Who  like  Jesus  to  set  a  broken  bone, 
to  pity  a  homeless  orphan,  to  nurse  a  sick  man,  to  take  a  prodigal  back  without 
any  scolding,  to  illumine  a  cemetery  all  plowed  with  graves,  to  make  a  queen  unto 
God  out  of  the  lost  w^oman  of  the  street,  to  catch  the  tears  of  human  sorrow  in  a 
lachrymatory  that  shall  never  be  broken?  Who  has  such  an  eye  to  see  our  need, 
such  a  lip  to  kiss  away  our  sorrow,  such  a  hand  to  snatch  us  out  of  the  fire,  such 
a  foot  to  trample  our  enemies,  such  a  heart  to  embrace  all  our  necessities?  I 
struggle  for  some  metaphor  with  which  to  express  Him.  He  is  not  like  the 
bursting  forth  of  a  full  orchestra:  that  is  too  loud.  He  is  not  like  the  sea  when 
lashed  to  rage  by  the  tempest:  that  is  too  boisterous. 

Oh  !  that  you  all  knew  His  sweetness.  How  soon  you  would  turn  from  your 
novels.  If  the  philosopher  leaped  out  of  his  bath  in  a  frenzy  of  joy,  and  clapped 
his  hands,  and  rushed  through  the  streets,  because  he  had  found  the  solution  of  a 
mathematical  problem,  how  will  you  feel  leaping  from  the  fountain  of  a  Saviour's 
mercy  and  pardon,  washed  clean  and  made  white  as  snow,  when  the  question  has 
been  solved:  "How  can  my  soul  be  saved?"  Naked,  frost-bitten,  storm-lashed 
soul,  let  Jesus  throw  around  thee  the  "  garments  that  smell  of  myrrh,  and  aloes, 
and  cassia,  out  of  the  ivory  palaces." 

IVORY  PALACES. 

You  know,  or  if  you  do  not  know,  I  will  tell  you  now,  that  some  of  the  pal- 
aces of  olden  time  were  adorned  with  ivory.  Ahab  and  Solomon  had  their  homes 
furnished  with  it.  The  tusks  of  African  and  Asiatic  elephants  were  twisted  into 
all  manners  of  shapes,  and  there  were  stairs  of  ivory,  and  chairs  of  ivory,  and 
tables  of  ivory,  and  floors  of  ivory,  and  pillars  of  ivory,  and  windows  of  ivor>^ 
and  fountains  that  dropped  into  basins  of  ivory,  and  rooms  that  had  ceilings  of 
ivory.  Oh  !  white  and  overmastering  beauty.  Green  tree-branches  sweeping  the 
white  curbs.     Tapestry  trailing  the  snowy  floors.     Brackets  of  light  flashing  on 


the;  XRANSFiGURATiON.  — >Frc?w  the  great  Raphael  PaiuHtig. 


(493) 


494 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


the  lustrous  surroundings.  Silvery  music  rippling  to  the  beach  of  the  arches. 
The  mere  thought  of  it  almost  stuns  my  brain,  and  you  sa}^  ' '  Oh,  if  I  could  only 
have  walked  over  such  floors  !  If  I  could  have  thrown  myself  in  such  a  chair  ! 
If  I  could  have  heard  the  drip  and  dash  of  those  fountains  !"  You  shall  have 
something  better  than  that  if  you  only  let  Christ  introduce  you.  From  that  place 
He  came,  and  to  that  place  He  proposes  to  transport  you,  for  His  "  garments  smell 
of  myrrh,  and  aloes,  and  cassia,  out  of  the  ivory  palaces." 

Oh,  what  a  place  heaven  must  be  !  The  grotto  of  the  Luxembourg  or  the 
Tuilleries  of  the  French,  the  Windsor  Castle  of  the  English,  the  Spanish  Alham- 
bra,  the  Russian  Kremlin,  dungeons  compared  with  it  !     Not  so  many  castles  on 


IT  IS  THE  LORD. — From  the  Painting  by  Audlcy  IMackzuorth. 

either  side  the  Rhine  as  on  both  sides  of  the  river  of  God  the  ivory  palaces  !  One 
for  the  angels,  insufferably  bright,  winged,  fire-eyed,  tempest-charioted;  one  for 
the  martyrs,  with  blood-red  robes,  from  under  the  altar;  one  for  the  King,  the 
steps  of  His  palace  the  crowns  of  the  church  militant;  one  for  the  singers,  who 
lead  the  one  hundred  and  forty  and  four  thousand;  one  for  you,  ransomed  from 
sin;  one  for  me,  plucked  from  the  burning.     Oh,  the  ivory  palaces  ! 

As  I  write  it  seems  to  me  as  if  the  windows  of  those  palaces  were  illumined 
for  some  great  victory,  and  I  look  and  see  climbing  the  stairs  of  ivory,  and  walking 
on  floors  of  ivory,  and  looking  from  the  windows  of  ivor}-,  some  whom  we  knew 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  495 

and  loved  on  earth.  Yes,  I  know  them.  There  are  father  and  mother,  not  eighty- 
two  3'ears  and  seventy-nine  years,  as  when  they  left  us,  but  blithe  and  young  as 
when  on  their  marriage  day.  And  there  are  brothers  and  sisters,  merrier  than 
when  we  used  to  romp  across  the  meadows  together.  The  cough  gone.  The 
cancer  cured.  The  erysipelas  healed.  The  heart-break  over.  Oh,  how  fair  they 
are  in  the  ivory  palaces  !  And  your  dear  little  children  that  went  out  from  3'ou — 
Christ  did  not  let  one  of  them  drop  as  he  lifted  them.  He  did  not  wrench  them 
from  you.  No.  They  went  as  from  one  they  loved  well  to  One  whom  they  loved 
better.  If  I  should  take  your  little  child  and  press  its  soft  face  against  my  rough 
•cheek,  I  might  keep  it  a  little  while;  but  when  you,  the  mother,  came  along,  it 
would  struggle  to  go  with  you.  And  so  3^ou  stood  holding  your  dying  child  when 
Jesus  passed  by  in  the  room,  and  the  little  one  sprang  out  to  greet  Him.  That  is 
all.  Your  Christian  dead  did  not  go  down  into  the  dust,  and  the  gravel,  and  the 
mud.  Though  it  rained  all  that  funeral  day,  and  the  water  came  up  to  the  wheel's 
hub  as  you  drove  out  to  the  cemetery,  it  made  no  difference  to  them,  for  they 
stepped  from  the  home  here  to  the  home  there,  right  into  the  ivory  palaces.  All 
is  well  with  them.     All  is  well. 

While  writing  this  discourse  as  I  got  to  about  this  point,  there  was  a  knock 
at  my  door,  and  I  received  a  telegram  from  a  very  dear  ministerial  friend.  It  read: 
' '  My  wife  just  died.  Funeral  next  Sunday.  Will  you  be  one  of  the  pall  bearers  ?' ' 
I  telegraphed  immediately:  "  I  will."  Who  could  hold  back  at  such  a  time?  I 
knew  I  could  carry  my  part  of  the  burden.  It  is  not  a  dead  weight  that  you  lift 
when  you  carry  a  Christian  out.  Jesus  makes  the  bed  up  soft  with  velvet  promises, 
and  He  says:  "  Put  her  down  there  very  gently.  Put  that  head,  which  will  never 
ache  again,  on  this  pillow  of  hallelujahs.  Send  up  word  that  the  procession  is 
•coming.  Ring  the  bells.  Ring  !  Open  your  gates,  ye  ivory  palaces  !"  And  so 
your  loved  ones  are  there.  They  are  just  as  certainly  there,  having  died  in  Christ, 
as  that  you  are  here.  There  is  only  one  thing  more  they  want.  Indeed,  there  is 
one  thing  in  heaven  they  have  not  got.  They  want  it.  What  is  it?  Your  com- 
pany. 


Jjet^JTJei  Si3rir|]eilj^3$> 


SOLOMON'S  GOSSIPY  HOUSEHOLD  AND  THE   GOOD  AND   EVIL  OF  SECRET 

ORGANIZATIONS. 


Tf^ifKfir^Wll^y 


fQ^.y^'f-^'^mf'  HAT  is  the  moral  effect  of  Free  Masonry,  Odd  Fellowship, 
%  '\^JV  ^  ^<^  Knights  of  Labor,  Greek'  Alphabet,  and  other  societies  ? 
A^  'S^lxtyf^i^f^  \  "Discover  not  a  secret  to  another,"  says  Solomon,  and  he 
had  good  reasons  for  laying  such  an  injunction,  for  in  his 
time,  as  in  all  subsequent  periods  of  the  world,  there  were 
people  too  much  disposed  to  tell  all  they  knew.  It  was 
blab,  blab,  blab;  physicians  revealing  the  case  of  their 
patients,  lawyers  exposing  the  private  affairs  of  their  clients,  neighbors  advertising 
the  faults  of  the  next-door  residents,  pretended  friends  betraying  confidences. 
One-half  of  the  trouble  of  every  community  comes  from  the  fact  that  so  many 
people  have  not  capacity  to  keep  their  mouths  shut.  When  I  hear  something  dis- 
paraging of  you  my  first  duty  is  not  to  tell  you.  But  if  I  tell  you  w^hat  somebody 
has  said  against  you,  and  then  go  out  and  tell  everybody  else  what  I  told  you, 
and  they  go  out  and  tell  others  what  I  told  them  that  I  told  you,  and  we  all  go  out, 
some  to  hunt  up  the  originator  of  the  story  and  others  to  hunt  it  down,  we  shall 
get  the  whole  community  talking  about  what  you  did  do  and  what  you  did  not 
do,  and  there  will  be  as  many  scalps  taken  as  though  a  band  of  Modocs  had  swept 
upon  a  helpless  village. 

We  have  two  ears  but  only  one  tongue,  a  physiological  suggestion  that  we 
ought  to  hear  a  good  deal  more  than  we  tell.  Let  us  join  a  conspiracy  that  we 
will  tell  each  other  all  the  good  and  nothing  of  the  ill,  and  then  there  will  not  be 
such  awful  need  of  sermons  on  Solomon's  words:     "Discover  not    a   secret   to 

another. ' ' 

GOSSIP  IN  SOLOMON'S   HOUSEHOLD. 

vSolomon  had  a  very  large  domestic  circle.  In  his  earlier  days  he  had  very 
confused  notions  about  monogamy  and  polygamy,  and  his  multitudinous  associates 
in  the  matrimonial  state  kept  him  too  well  informed  as  to  what  was  going  on  in 
Jerusalem.  They  gathered  up  all  the  privacies  of  the  city  and  poured  them  into  his 
ear,  and  his  family  became  a  sorosis  or  female  debating  society  of  700,  discussing 
day  after  day  all  the  difficulties  between  husbands  and  wives,  between   employers 

(496) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  497 

and  employes,   between  rulers  and  subjects,    tnitil  Solomon  deplores  volubility 
about  affairs  that  do  not  belong  to  us  and  extols  the  virtue  of  secretiveness. 

By  the  power  of  a  secret  divulged,  families,  churches,  neighborhoods,  nations 
fly  apart.  By  the  power  of  a  secret  kept,  great  charities,  socialities,  reformatory 
movements  and  Christian  enterprises  may  be  advanced.  Men  are  gregarious — 
cattle  in  herds,  fish  in  schools,  birds  in  flocks,  men  in  social  circles.  You  ma}^,  by 
the  discharge  of  a  gun,  scatter  a  flock  of  quails,  or  by  the  plunge  of  the  anchor 
send  apart  the  denizens  of  the  sea,  but  they  will  gather  themselves  together  again. 
If  you,  by  some  new  power,  could  break  the  associations  in  which  men  now  stand, 
they  would  again  adhere.  God  meant  it  so.  He  has  gathered  all  the  flowers  and 
shrubs  into  associations.  You  may  plant  one  forget-me-not  or  heart 's-ease  alone, 
away  off  upon  the  hillside,  but  it  will  soon  hunt  up  some  other  forget-me-not  or 
heart's-ease.  Plants  love  company.  You  will  find  them  talking  to  each  other  in 
the  dew.     A  galaxy  of  stars  is  only  a  mutual  life  insurance  company. 

You  sometimes  see  a  man  with  no  outbranchings  of  sympathy.  His  nature 
is  cold  and  hard  like  a  ship's  mast  ice-glazed,  which  the  most  agile  sailor  could 
never  climb.  Others  have  a  thousand  roots  and  a  thousand  branches.  Innumer- 
able tendrils  climb  their  hearts,  and  blossom  all  the  way  up,  and  the  fowls  of 
heaven  sing  in  the  branches.  In  consequence  of  this  tendency,  we  find  men  com- 
ing together  in  tribes,  in  communities,  in  churches,  in  societies.  Some  gather 
together  to  cultivate  the  arts,  some  to  plan  for  the  welfare  of  the  State,  some  to 
discuss  religious  themes,  some  to  kindle  their  mirth,  some  to  advance  their  crafts. 
So  ever>^  active  community  is  divided  into  associations  of  artists,  of  merchants,  of 
bookbinders,  of  carpenters,  of  masons,  of  plasterers,  of  shipwrights,  of  plumbers. 
Do  you  cry  out  against  it  ?  Then  you  cry  out  against  a  tendency  divinely  im- 
planted. Your  tirades  would  accomplish  no  more  than  if  you  should  preach  to  a 
busy  ant-hill  or  bee-hive  a  long  sermon  against  secret  societies. 

Here  we  find  the  oft-discussed  question  whether  associations  that  do  their 
work  with  closed  doors,  and  admit  their  members  by  pass- words,  and  greet  each 
other  with  a  secret  grip,  are  right  or  wrong.  I  answer  that  it  depends  entirely  on 
the  nature  of  the  object  for  which  they  meet.  Is  it  to  pass  the  hours  in  revelr3% 
wassail,  blasphemy  and  obscene  talk,  or  to  plot  trouble  to  the  State,  or  to  debauch 
the  innocent,  then  I  say,  with  an  emphasis  that  no  man  can  mistake,  No  !  But  is 
the  object  the  defence  of  the  rights  of  any  class  against  oppression,  the  improve- 
ment of  the  mind,  the  enlargement  of  the  heart,  the  advancement  of  art,  the 
defence  of  the  government,  the  extirpation  of  crime  or  the  kindling  of  a  pure- 
hearted  sociality,  then  I  say,  with  just  as  much  emphasis,  Yes  ! 

There  is  no  need  that  we  who  plan  for  the  conquest  of  right  over  wrong 
should  publish  to  all  the  world  our  intentions.     The  general  of  any  army  never 
sends  to  the  opposing  troops  information   of  the  coming  attack.     Shall  we  who 
32 


498  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

have  enlisted  in  the  cause  of  God  and  humanity  expose  our  plans  to  the  enemy  ? 
No  !  we  will  in  secret  plot  the  ruin  of  all  the  enterprises  of  Satan  and  his  cohorts. 
When  they  expect  us  by  day  we  will  fall  upon  them  by  night.  While  they  are 
strengthening  their  left  wing  we  will  double  up  their  right.  By  a  plan  of  battle 
formed  in  secret  conclave  we  will  come  suddenly  upon  them,  crying:  "  The  sword 
of  the  lyord  and  of  Gideon. ' '  The  victory  would  have  been  gained  long  ago 
if  all  professed  soldiers  of  Christ  had  done  their  duty,  but  many  in  the  ranks 
are  like  the  Christian  who  sings  loudest,  with  book  before  his  eyes  while  the 
collection  is  being  taken  up.  Their  eyes  are  engrossed  with  the  secrecy  of  their 
selfishness. 

Secrecy  of  plot  and  execution  are  wrong  only  when  the  object  and  ends  are 
nefarious.  Every  family  is  a  secret  society,  every  business  firm  and  every  banking 
and  insurance  institution.  Those  men  who  have  no  capacity  to  keep  a  secret  are 
unfit  for  positions  of  trust  anywhere.  There  are  thousands  of  men  whose  vital 
need  is  culturing  a  capacity  to  keep  a  secret.  Men  talk  too  much,  and  women 
too.     There  is  a  time  to  keep  silence  as  well  as  a  time  to  speak. 

Although  not  belonging  to  any  of  the  great  secret  societies  about  which  there 
has  been  so  much  violent  discussion,  I  have  only  words  of  praise  for  those  asso- 
ciations which  have  for  their  object  the  maintenance  of  right  against  wrong,  or 
the  reclamation  of  inebriates,  or  like  the  score  of  mutual  benefit  societies  called 
by  different  names,  that  provide  temporary  relief  for  widows  and  orphans  and  for 
men  incapacitated  by  sickness  or  accident  from  earning  a  livelihood.  Had  it  not 
been  for  the  large  number  of  secret  labor  organizations  in  this  country,  monopoly 
would  long  ago  have,  under  its  ponderous  wheels,  ground  the  laboring  classes 
into  an  intolerable  servitude. 

RESISTANCE  TO   MONOPOLY. 

The  men  who  want  the  whole  earth  to  themselves  would  have  got  it  before 
this  had  it  not  been  for  the  banding  together  of  great  secret  organizations.  And, 
while  we  deplore  many  things  that  have  been  done  by  them,  their  existence  is  a 
necessity,  and  their  legitimate  sphere  distinctly  pointed  out  by  the  providence  of 
God.  Such  organizations  are  trying  to  dismiss  from  their  association  all  mem- 
bers in  favor  of  anarchy  and  social  chaos.  They  will  gradually  cease  anything 
like  tyranny  over  their  members,  and  will  forbid  violent  interference  with  any 
man's  work,  whether  he  belongs  to  their  union  or  is  outside  of  it,  and  will 
declare  their  disgust  with  any  such  rule  as  that  passed  in  England  by  the  Man- 
chester Bricklayers'  Association,  which  says  any  man  found  running  or  working 
beyond  a  regular  speed  shall  be  fined  two  shillings  six  pence  for  the  first  offence, 
five  .shillings  for  the  second,  ten  shillings  for  the  third,  and  if  still  persisting, 
shall  be  dealt  with  as  the  committee  think  proper. 


(499) 


500  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

There  are  secret  societies  in  our  colleges  that  have  letters  of  the  Greek 
alphabet  for  their  nomenclature,  and  their  members  are  at  the  very  front  in 
scholarship  and  irreproachable  in  morals,  while  there  are  others  the  scene  of 
carousal,  and  they  gamble,  and  they  drink,  and  they  graduate  knowing  a  hundred 
times  more  about  sin  than  they  do  of  geometry  and  Sophocles. 

In  other  words,  secret  societies,  like  individuals,  are  good  or  bad,  are  the 
means  of  moral  health  or  of  temporal  and  eternal  damnation.  All  good  people 
recognize  the  vice  of  slandering  an  individual,  but  many  do  not  see  the  sin  of 
slandering  an  organization.  It  was  a  disposition  to  slander  and  intrigue  against 
the  government  that  led  Mar>',  Queen  of  Scots,  to  the  scaffold,  and  if  all  who 
have  been  equally  as  guilty  had  been  as  severely  punished  the  roll  of  victims 
would  have  been  immensely  large. 

But  secret  societies  have  done  incalculable  good.  One  of  these  gave  for  the 
relief  of  the  sick  in  1873,  in  this  country,  $1,490,274.  Some  of  these  societies 
have  poured  a  very  heaven  of  sunshine  and  benediction  into  the  home  of  suffer- 
ing. Several  of  them  are  founded  on  fidelity  to  good  citizenship  and  the  Bible. 
I  have  never  taken  one  of  their  degrees.  They  might  give  me  the  grip  a  thousand 
times,  and  I  would  not  recognize  it.  I  am  ignorant  of  their  pass-words,  and  I 
must  judge  entirely  from  the  outside.  But  Christ  has  given  us  a  rule  by  which 
we  may  judge  not  only  all  individuals,  but  all  societies,  secret  and  open.  "By 
their  fniits  ye  shall  know  them." 

Bad  societies  make  bad  men.  Good  societies  make  good  men.  A  bad  man 
will  not  stay  in  a  good  society.  A  good  man  will  not  stav  in  a  bad  society. 
Then  try  all  secret  societies  by  two  or  three  rules. 

Test  the  first !  Their  influence  on  home,  if  you  have  a  home.  That  wife 
soon  loses  her  influence  over  her  husband  who  nervously  and  foolishly  looks  upon 
all  evening  absence  as  an  assault  on  domesticitj'.  How  are  the  great  enterprises 
of  reform,  and  art,  and  literature,  and  beneficence  and  public  weal  to  be  carried 
on  if  every  man  is  to  have  his  world  bounded  on  one  side  by  his  front  doorstep, 
and  on  the  other  side  by  his  back  window,  knowing  nothing  higher  than  his  own 
attic  or  lower  than  his  own  cellar?  That  wife  who  becomes  jealous  of  her  hus- 
band's attention  to  art,  or  literature,  or  religion,  or  charity  is  breaking  her  own 
sceptre  of  conjugal  power. 

But  let  no  man  sacrifice  home  life  to  secret  society  life,  as  many  do.  I  can 
point  out  to  you  a  great  many  names  of  men  who  are  guilty  of  this  sacrilege. 
They  are  as  genial  as  angels  at  the  society  room,  and  as  ugly  as  sin  at  home. 
They  are  generous  on  all  subjects  of  wine  suppers,  yachts  and  fast  horses,  but 
they  are  stingy  about  the  wives'  dresses  and  the  children's  shoes.  That  man  has 
made  that  which  might  be  a  healthful  influence  a  usurper  of  his  affections,  and 
he  has  married  it,  and  he  is  guilty  of  moral  bigamy.     Under  this  process,  the 


'      THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  501 

wife,  whatever  her  features,  becomes  uninteresting  and  homely.  He  becomes 
critical  of  her,  does  not  like  the  dress,  does  not  like  the  way  she  arranges  her  hair, 
is  amazed  that  he  ever  was  so  unromantic  as  to  offer  her  hand  and  heart. 

SACRIFICING  THE   HOME. 

There  are  secret  societies  where  membership  always  involves  domestic  ship- 
wreck. Tell  me  that  a  man  has  joined  a  certain  kind,  and  tell  me  nothing  more 
about  him  for  ten  years,  and  I  will  write  his  history  if  he  be  still  alive.  The 
man  is  a  wine-guzzler,  his  wife  broken-hearted  or  prematurely  old,  his  fortune 
gone  or  reduced,  and  his  home  a  mere  name  in  the  directory.  Here  are  six 
secular  nights  in  the  week. 

"What  shall  I  do  with  them?"  Says  the  father  and  the  husband:  "I  will 
give  four  of  these  nights  to  the  improvement  and  entertainment  of  my  family, 
either  at  home  or  in  good  neighborhood.  I  will  devote  one  to  charitable  institu- 
tions.    I  will  devote  one  to  my  lodge. ' ' 

I  congratulate  you.  Here  is  a  man  who  says:  ' '  Out  of  the  six  secular  nights 
of  the  week  I  will  devote  five  to  lodges  and  clubs  and  associations  and  one  to  the 
home,  which  night  I  will  spend  in  scowling  like  a  March  squall,  wishing  I  was 
out  spending  it  as  I  have  spent  the  other  five, ' ' 

That  man's  obituary  is  written.  Not  one  out  of  10,000  that  ever  gets  so  far 
on  the  wrong  road  ever  stops.  Gradually  his  health  will  fail  through  late  hours, 
and  through  too  much  stimulants  he  will  be  first-rate  prey  for  erysipelas  and 
rheumatism  of  the  heart.  The  doctor  coming  in  will  at  a  glance  see  it  is  not  only 
present  disease  he  must  fight,  but  years  of  fast  living.  The  clergyman,  for  the 
sake  of  the  feelings  of  the  family,  on  the  funeral  day  will  talk  in  religious  gen- 
eralities. The  men  who  got  his  yacht  in  the  eternal  rapids  will  not  be  at  the 
obsequies.  They  have  pressing  engagements  that  day.  They  will  send  flowers 
to  the  cofiin,  will  send  their  wives  to  utter  words  of  sympathy,  but  they  will  have 
engagements  elsewhere.  They  never  come.  Bring  me  mallet  and  chisel,  and  I 
will  cut  on  the  tombstone  that  man's  epitaph:  "  Blessed  are  the  dead  who  died  in 
the  Lord." 

"  No,"  you  say,  "  that  would  not  be  appropriate." 

"  Let  me  die  the  death  of  the  righteous  and  let  my  last  end  be  like  his." 

"  No,"  3'ou  say,  "  that  would  not  be  appropriate." 

"Then  give  me  the  mallet  and  the  chisel,  and  I  will  cut  an  honest  epitaph: 
*  Here  lies  the  victim  of  dissipating  associations  ! '  " 

RUINED    BY  SOCIAL   EXCESS. 

You  and  I  everj^  day  know  of  commercial  establishments  going  to  ruin 
through  the  social  excess  of  one  or  two  members,  their  fortune  beaten  to  death 


502  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

with  ball-player's  bat,  or  cut  amidship  with  the  prow  of  the  regatta,  or  going 
down  under  the  swift  hoofs  of  the  fast  horses,  or  drowned  in  the  large  potations 
of  cognac  or  Monongahela.  That  secret  society  was  the  Loch  Earn.  Their 
business  was  the  Ville  de  Havre.  They  struck  and  the  Ville  de  Havre  went 
under. 

The  third  test  by  which  you  may  know  whether  the  society  to  which  you 
belong  is  good  or  bad  is  this:  What  is  its  effect  on  your  sense  of  moral  and  reli- 
gious obligation  ?  Now,  if  I  should  take  a  thousand  names  in  our  city  and  put 
them  on  a  roll,  and  then  I  should  lay  that  roll  in  a  drawer,  and  a  hundred  years 
from  now  some  one  should  take  that  roll  and  call  it  from  A  to  Z,  there  would 
not  one  of  them  answer.  I  say  that  any  society  that  makes  me  forget  that  fact  is 
bad  society.  When  I  go  to  Chicago  I  am  sometimes  perplexed  at  Buffalo,  as  I 
suppose  many  travelers  are,  as  to  whether  it  is  better  to  take  the  Lake  Shore  route 
or  the  Michigan  Central,  equally  expeditious  and  equally  safe,  getting  to  their 
destination  at  the  same  time.  But  suppose  that  I  hear  that  on  one  route  the  track 
is  torn  up,  the  bridges  are  down  and  the  switches  are  unlocked,  it  will  not  take 
me  a  great  while  to  decide  which  road  to  take. 

Now,  here  are  two  roads  in  the  future — the  Christian  and  the  unchristian,  the 
safe  and  the  unsafe.  Any  institution  or  any  association  that  confuses  my  ideas  in 
regard  to  that  fact  is  a  bad  institution  and  a  bad  association.  I  had  prayers  before 
I  joined  that  society;  did  I  have  them  afterward?  I  attended  the  house  of  God 
before  I  connected  myself  with  that  union;  do  I  absent  myself  from  religious 
influences  ?  Which  would  you  rather  have  in  your  hand  when  you  come  to  die — 
a  pack  of  cards  or  a  Bible  ?  Which  would  you  rather  have  pressed  to  your  lips 
in  the  closing  moment — the  cup  of  Belshazzarean  wassail  or  the  chalice  of  Chris- 
tian communion  ?  Who  would  you  rather  have  for  your  pall-bearers— the  elders 
of  a  Christian  church  or  the  companions  whose  conversation  was  full  of  slang  and 
innuendo  ?  Who  would  you  rather  have  for  your  eternal  companions — those  men 
who  spend  their  evenings  betting,  gambling,  swearing,  carousing,  and  telling  vile 
stories,  or  your  little  child,  that  bright  girl  whom  the  Lord  took  ?  Oh,  you  would 
not  have  been  away  so  much  nights,  would  you,  if  you  had  known  she  was  going 
away  so  soon  ?  Dear  me,  your  house  has  never  been  the  same  place  since.  Your 
wife  has  never  brightened  up,  she  has  never  got  over  it.  She  never  will  get  over 
it.  How  long  the  evenings  are  with  no  one  to  put  to  bed  and  no  one  to  whom  to 
tell  the  beautiful  Bible  stories. 

A  ROPE  THAT    REACHES   HEAVEN. 

What  a  pity  it  is  that  you  cannot  spend  more  evenings  at  home  in  tr>nng 
to  help  her  bear  that  sorrow.  You  can  never  drown  that  grief  in  the  wine  cup. 
You  can  never  break  away  from  the  little  arms  that  used  to  be  flung  around  your 


(503) 


504  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 

neck  when  she  used  to  say:  "  Papa,  do  stay  with  me  to-night.  Do  stay  with  me 
to-night." 

You  will  never  be  able  to  wipe  away  from  your  lips  the  dying  kiss  of  your 
little  girl.  The  fascination  of  a  bad  secret  society  is  so  great  that  sometimes  a 
man  has  turned  his  back  on  his  home  when  his  child  was  dying  of  scarlet  fever. 
He  went  away.  Before  he  got  back  at  midnight  the  eyes  had  been  closed,  the 
undertaker  had  done  his  work,  and  the  wife,  worn  out  with  three  weeks'  watch- 
ing, lay  unconscious  in  the  next  room.  Then  the  returned  father  comes  up-stairs, 
and  he  sees  the  cradle  gone  and  the  windows  up,  and  sa5's:  "What  is  the 
matter  ?' ' 

On  the  day  of  judgment  he  will  find  out  what  was  the  matter. 

Oh,  man  astray,  God  help  you  !  I  am  going  to  make  a  very  stout  rope. 
You  know  that  sometimes  a  ropemaker  will  take  very  small  threads  and  wind 
them  together  until  after  a  while  they  become  a  ship  cable.  And  I  am  going  to 
take  some  very  small,  delicate  threads  and  wind  them  together  until  they  make  a 
very  stout  rope.  I  will  take  all  the  memories  of  the  marriage  daj^ — a  thread  of 
laughter,  a  thread  of  light,  a  thread  of  music,  a  thread  of  banqueting,  a  thread 
of  congratulation,  and  I  twist  them  together  and  I  have  one  strand.  Then  I  take 
a  thread  of  the  hour  of  the  first  advent  in  your  house,  a  thread  of  the  darkness 
that  preceded,  and  a  thread  of  the  light  that  followed,  and  a  thread  of  the  beauti- 
ful scarf  that  little  child  used  to  wear  when  she  bounded  out  at  eventide  to  greet 
you,  and  then  a  thread  of  the  beautiful  dress  in  which  you  laid  her  away  for  the 
resurrection;  and  then  I  twist  all  these  threads  together,  and  I  have-  another 
strand.  Then  I  take  a  thread  of  the  scarlet  robe  of  a  suffering  Christ,  and  a 
thread  of  the  white  raiment  of  your  loved  ones  before  the  throne,  and  a  string  of 
the  harp  seraphic,  and  I  twist  them  all  together,  and  I  have  a  third  strand. 

"  Oh,"  you  say,  "  either  strand  is  enough  to  hold  fast  a  world  !" 

No;  I  will  take  these  strands  and  I  will  twist  them  together,  and  one  end  of 
that  rope  I  will  fasten,  not  to  the  communion  table,  for  it  shall  be  removed;  not  to 
a  pillar  of  the  organ,  for  that  will  crumble  in  the  ages;  but  I  wind  it  round  and 
round  the  cross  of  a  sympathizing  Christ,  and,  having  fastened  one  end  of  the 
rope  to  the  cross,  I  throw  the  other  end  to  you.  Lay  hold  of  it !  Pull  for  your 
life  !     Pull  for  heaven. 


^  Siitm  i5r£  il>^  Sr^sirwtirl^is^crn^ 


THE  NATIONAL  HONOR  BROUGHT   INTO   DISGRACE  BY 
MORMON  ISM. 

IN  the  world  there  have  been  hundreds  of  political  parties.  They 
did  their  work.  They  lost  their  prestige.  They  expired.  Their 
names  are  forgotten.  Enough  for  me  to  declare  what  I  believe 
God  and  civilization  demand  of  the  two  political  parties  of  this 
day,  or  their  extermination.  God  and  civilization  demand  of  the 
political  parties  of  this  day  a  plank  anti-Mormonistic.  It  is  high 
time  that  the  nation  stopped  plajdng  with  this  cancer.  All  the 
plasters  of  political  quacks  only  aggravate  it,  and  nothing  but  the 
surgery  of  the  sword  will  cure  it.  All  the  congressional  laws  on  this 
subject  have  been  notorious  failures.  Meanwhile  the  great  monster  sits 
between  the  two  mountains — the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Sierra 
Nevadas — sits  in  defiance  and  mockery,  sometimes  holding  its  sides 
with  uncontrollable  mirth  at  our  national  impotenc5^  Shipload  af'"er 
shipload  of  Mormons  are  regurgitated  at  your  Castle  Garden,  and 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  them  are  being  sent  on  to  the  great  moral 
v/  lazaretto  of  the  West.  Others  are  on  the  way,  and  the  Atlantic  is 
heaving  toward  us  the  great  surges  of  foreign  libertinism.  This  moment 
the  emissaries  of  that  organized  lust  are  busy  in  Norway,  and  Sweden,  and 
England,  and  Ireland,  and  Scotland,  and  Germany,  breaking  up  homes,  and 
with  infernal  cords  drawing  the  population  this  way,  a  population  which  will  be 
dumped  as  carrion  on  the  American  territories.  American  crime,  with  its  long 
rake  stretched  across  other  continents,  is  heaping  up  on  this  land  great  windrows 
of  abomination.  Worse  and  worse.  Four  hundred  Mormons  coming  into  our 
port  in  one  day,  600  in  another  day,  800  in  another  day. 

THE  DEMAND  OF  THE  AGE. 

Are  we  so  cowardly  and  selfish  in  this  generation  that  we  are  going  to 
bequeath  to  the  following  generations  this  great  evil  ?  L,etting  it  go  on  until  our 
children  come  to  the  front  and  we  are  safely  entrenched  under  the  mound  of  our 
own  sepulchres,  leaving  our  children  through  all  their  active  life  to  wonder  why 
we  postponed  this  evil  for  their  extirpation  when  we  might  have  destroyed  it  with 
a  hundred-fold  less  exposure.     What  a  legacy  for  this  generation  to  leave  the 

(505) 


5o6  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

following  generation  !  A  vast  acreage  of  sweltering  putrefaction,  of  lowest 
beastliness,  of  suffocating  stench,  all  the  time  becoming  more  and  more  mal- 
odorous, and  rotten,  and  damnable.  We  want  some  great  political  party,  in  some 
strong  and  unmistakable  plank,  to  declare  that  it  will  extirpate  heroically  and 
immediately  this  great  harem  of  the  American  continent.  We  want  some  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  to  come  in  on  such  an  anti-Mormonistic  platform,  and 
in  his  opening  message  to  Congress  ask  for  an  appropriation  for  military  expedi- 
tion, and  then  put  such  a  man  as  was  Phil  Sheridan  in  his  lightning  stirrups, 
heading  his  horse  westward,  and  in  one  year  Mormonism  will  be  extirpated  and 
national  decency  vindicated.  Compelling  Mormonistic  chiefs  to  take  oath  of 
allegiance  will  not  do  it,  for  they  have  declared  in  open  assembly  that  perjury  in 
their  cause  is  commendable.  Religious  tracts  on  purity  amount  to  nothing. 
They  will  not  read  them.  Anything  shorter  than  bayonets  and  anything  softer 
than  bullets  will  never  do  that  work. 

Every  day  you  open  a  paper  and  you  see  in  the  State  of  New  York  some 
bigamist  arrested  and  punished.  What  you  prohibit  on  a  small  scale  for  a  State 
you  allow  on  a  large  scale  for  a  nation.  Bigamy  must  be  put  down,  pol3'gamy 
must  go  free.  What  has  been  the  effect,  my  readers  ?  It  has  demoralized  this 
whole  nation.  That  carbuncle  on  the  back  of  the  nation  has  sickened  all  the 
nerves,  and  muscles,  and  arteries,  and  veins,  and  limbs  of  the  body  politic.  I 
account  in  that  way  for  many  of  the  loose  ideas  abroad  on  all  sides  on  the  subject 
©f  the  marriage  relation.  Divorce  by  the  wholesale.  Concubinage  in  high 
circles.     L,ibertinism,  if  gloved  and  patent-leathered,  admitted  into  high  circles. 

INDUCING  A  LAXITY  IN  THE  MARITAL  RELATION. 

The  malaria  of  Salt  Lake  City  has  smitten  the  nation  with  moral  typhoid. 
The  bad  influence  has  well-nigh  spiked  that  gun  of  Sinai  which  needs  to  thunder 
over  the  New  England  hills,  over  the  savannas  of  the  South  and  over  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  the  Sierra  Nevadas  clear  to  the  Pacific  coast,  ' '  Thou  shalt  not  com- 
mit adultery!"  Advertisements  in  newspapers  saying,  "Divorce  legally  and 
quietly  effected.  Can  pay  in  installments!"  Some  of  the  New  York  lawyers 
giving  their  entire  time  to  domestic  separations — suborning  witnesses,  giving 
advice  as  to  how  many  months  it  is  necessary  to  be  out  of  the  city,  inducing  sus- 
picious complications,  sending  detective  sleuth-hounds  on  the  track  of  good  citizens, 
until  the  honest  lawyers  of  these  cities  were  compelled  a  little  while  ago  to  make 
outcry  against  the  bemeaning  of  their  honorable  profession.  Looser  and  looser 
ideas  on  the  subject  of  marriage,  until  sometimes  the  question  of  divorce  is  taken 
into  consideration  in  the  wedding  solemnities,  and  people  promise  fidelity  till 
death  do  them  part,  and  say  afterward  softly,  "  perhaps,"  "  may  be,"  "I  rather 
think  so."     All  over  this  land  more  and  more  marriages  in  fun. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


507 


We  do  not  want  divorce  made  more  easy  in  this  country;  we  want  it  made 
more  hard,  so  that  people  will  be  more  cautious  in  their  affiancing,  and  you  will 
understand  that  if  you  marry  a  brute  of  a  husband  or  a  fool  of  a  wife,  you  will 
have  to  stand  it.  Ah  !  my  readers,  there  will  be  no  toning  up  on  this  subject,  there 
will  be  no  moral  health  in  the  United  States  on  the  subject  of  the  marriage  relation 
until  this  nation  shall  slough  off  this  Mormonistic  ulcer,  and  burn  out  with  caustic 


_^     «&4.i^£r 


A   MORMON'S   WIFE   CAST   OUT. 

of  gunpowder  this  wound  which  has  been  so  long  feculent  and  ichorous  and 
deathful.  If  you  are  under  the  delusion  that  by  mild  laws  passed  against  Mor- 
raonism  the  evil  will  be  extirpated,  you  are  making  an  awful  mistake.  The  sooner 
you  get  over  it  the  better.  God  and  civilization  demand  of  both  political  parties 
now  a  plank  anti-Mormonistic. 

Again,  there  is  demanded  of  the  political  parties  in  this  day,  a  plank  of  intel- 
ligent helpfulness  for  the  great  foreign  populations  which  have  come  among  us^ 


5o8  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

It  is  too  late  now  to  discuss  whether  we  had  better  let  them  come.  They  are  here. 
The}'  are  coming  this  moment  through  the  Narrows,  they  are  coming  this  moment 
through  the  gates  of  Castle  Garden,  they  are  this  moment  taking  the  first  full 
inhalation  of  the  free  air  of  America,  and  they  will  continue  to  come  as  long  as 
this  country  is  the  best  place  to  live  in.  You  might  as  well  pass  a  law  prohibiting 
summer  bees  from  alighting  on  a  field  of  blossoming  buckwheat,  you  might  as 
well  prohibit  the  stags  of  the  mountains  from  coming  down  to  the  deer  lick,  as  to 
prohibit  the  hunger-bitten  nations  of  Europe  from  coming  to  this  land  of  bread;  as 
to  prohibit  the  people  of  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  Norway,  Sweden,  and  Ger- 
many, working  themselves  to  death  on  small  wages  on  the  other  side  of  the  sea, 
from  coming  to  this  land,  where  there  are  the  largest  compensations  under  the 
sun.  Why  did  God  spread  out  the  prairies  of  Dakota,  and  roll  the  precious  ore 
into  Colorado  ?  It  was  that  all  the  earth  might  come  and  plow,  and  come  and 
dig.  Just  as  long  as  the  centrifugal  force  of  foreign  despotisms  throw  them  off, 
just  so  long  will  the  centripetal  force  of  American  institutions  draw  them  here. 

INTERMARRIAGE  OF  NATIONALITIES. 

And  that  is  what  is  going  to  make  this  the  mightiest  nation  of  the  earth. 
Intermarriage  of  nationalities.  Not  circle  intermarrying  circle,  and  nation  inter- 
marr>'ing  nation,  but  is  going  to  be  Italian  and  Norwegian,  Russian  and  Celt, 
Scotch  and  French,  English  and  American.  The  American  of  a  hundred  years 
from  now  is  to  be  different  from  the  American  of  to-day.  German  brain,  Irish 
wit,  French  civility,  Scotch  firmness,  English  loyalty,  Italian  aesthetics  packed 
into  one  man,  and  he  an  American.  It  is  this  intermarriage  of  nationalities  that 
is  going  to  make  the  American  race  the  mightiest  race  of  the  ages.  Now,  I  say, 
in  God's  name  let  them  come. 

But  what  are  we  doing  for  the  moral  and  intellectual  culture  of  the  half  mill- 
ion of  foreigners  who  came  in  one  year,  and  the  six  hundred  thousand  who  came 
in  another  year,  and  the  eight  hundred  thousand  who  came  in  another  year,  and 
the  million  who  came  into  our  various  American  ports.  What  are  we  doing  for 
them  ?  Well,  we  are  doing  a  great  deal  for  them.  We  steal  their  baggage  as 
soon  as  they  get  ashore  !  We  send  them  up  to  a  boarding-house  where  the  least 
they  lose  is  their  money.  We  swindle  them  within  ten  minutes  after  they  get 
ashore.  We  are  doing  a  great  deal  for  them  !  But  what  are  we  doing  to  intro- 
duce them  into  the  duties  of  good  citizenship  ?  Many  of  them  never  saw  a  ballot- 
box,  many  of  them  never  heard  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  many  of 
them  have  no  acquaintance  with  our  laws.  Now,  I  say,  let  the  Government  of 
the  United  States,  so  commanded  by  some  political  party,  give  to  every  immigrant 
who  lands  here  a  volume  in  good  type  and  well  bound  for  long  usage — a  volume 
■containing  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE. 


509 


and  a  chapter  on  the  spirit  of  our  government.  Let  there  be  such  a  book  on 
every  shelf  of  ever>"  free  Hbrary  in  America.  While  the  American  Bible  Society 
puts  into  the  right  hand  of  every  immigrant  a  copy  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  let  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  so  commanded  by  some  political  party,  put  into 
the  left  hand  of  every  immigrant  a  volume  instructing  him  in  the  duties  of  good 


DECORATION   DAY. 

citizenship.  There  are  thousands  of  foreigners  in  this  land  who  need  to  learn  that 
the  ballot-box  is  not  a  footstool,  but  a  throne;  not  something  to  put  your  foot  on, 
but  something  to  bow  before. 

Again,  it  is  demanded  of  the  political  parties  of  this  day  that  they  have  a 
plank  that  shall  acknowledge  God.  Let  there  be  no  favoring  of  sects.  Let  Trini- 
tarian and  Unitarian,  Jew  and  Gentile,  Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic,  be  alike 


5IO  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

in  the  sight  of  the  law — every  man  free  to  worship  in  his  own  way — but  let  no 
political  party  think  it  can  do  its  duty,  unless  it  acknowledges  that  God  who  built 
this  continent,  and  revealed  it  at  the  right  time  to  the  discoverer,  and  who  has 
■established  a  prosperity  which  has  been  given  to  no  other  people.  "Oh,"  says 
■some  one,  "there  are  people  in  this  country  who  do  not  believe  in  God,  and  it 
would  be  an  insult  to  them."  Well,  there  are  people  in  this  country  who  do  not 
believe  in  common  decency,  or  common  honesty,  or  any  kind  of  government,  pre- 
ferring anarchy.  Your  every  platform  is  an  insult  to  them.  You  ought  not  to 
regard  a  man  who  does  not  believe  in  God  any  more  than  you  should  regard  a 
man  who  refuses  to  believe  in  common  decency.  God  is  the  only  source  of  good 
:government.  Why  not,  then,  say  so,  and  let  the  chairman  of  the  committee  on 
resolutions  in  your  national  convention  take  a  pen  full  of  ink,  and  with  bold  hand 
head  the  document  with  one  significant  ' '  Whereas, ' '  acknowledging  the  good- 
ness of  God  in  the  past,  and  begging  His  kindness  and  protection  for  the  future. 

For  the  lack  of  recognition  of  God  in  your  political  platforms  they  amount  to 
nothing.  They  both  make  loud  declaration  about  civil  service  reform,  and  it  has 
been  a  failure.  If  you  can  take  now  in  your  cool  moments  the  declaration  made 
by  the  Democratic  party  in  Cincinnati  in  1880,  and  the  declaration  made  by  the 
Republican  party  in  Chicago  in  1880,  and  read  those  two  declarations  on  the  sub- 
ject of  civil  service  reform,  and  then  think  of  what  has  transpired,  and  control 
your  mirth,  you  have  more  self-control  than  I  have.  My  child  asks  me  what  is 
civil  service  reform,  and  I  tell  him,  as  near  as  I  can  understand,  it  is  that  when  the 
Republican  party  get  the  government  of  a  State  they  are  to  turn  out  the  Democrats, 
and  when  the  Democrats  get  the  supremacy  in  the  State  they  are  to  turn  out  the 
Republicans. 

Your  platforms  cry  out  for  reform,  and  promise  reform,  if  they  are  only  kept 
in  power,  or  may  obtain  power.  How  much  do  they  mean  by  reform  ?  See  what 
the  Republican  party  did  in  1876  in  L,ouisiana  and  what  the  Democratic  party  did 
three  or  four  years  after  in  the  gubernatorial  election  in  Maine  !  Credit  Mobilier 
of  eleven  years  ago.  River  and  Harbor  Bill,  by  which  the  taxpayers  of  the  United 
States  were  swindled  out  of  fifty  millions  of  dollars — in  both  infamies  the  two 
parties  shoulder  to  shoulder,  and  side  to  side.  What  5'ou  want  is  more  of  God  in 
your  pronunciamentoes.  Without  Him  reform  is  retrogression,  and  gain  is  loss, 
and  victory  is  defeat. 

LOYALTY   TO   GOD. 

This  country  belongs  to  God,  and  we  ought  in  every  possible  way  to  acknowl- 
edge it.  From  the  moment  that,  on  an  October  morning,  in  1492,  Columbus 
looked  over  the  side  of  the  ship,  and  saw  the  carved  staff  which  made  him  think 
lie  was  near  an  inhabited  country,  and  saw  also  a  thorn  and  a  cluster  of  berries — 
"type  of  our  history  ever  since,  the  piercing  sorrows  and  the  cluster  of  national  joys 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  511 

— until  this  hour,  our  country  has  been  bounded  on  the  north,  and  south,  and 
east,  and  west  by  the  goodness  of  God.  The  Huguenots  took  possession  of  the 
CaroHnas  in  the  name  of  God;  WilHam  Penn  settled  Philadelphia  in  the  name  of 
God;  the  Hollanders  took  possession  of  New  York  in  the  name  of  God;  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers  settled  New  England  in  the  name  of  God.  Preceding  the  first  gun 
of  Bunker  Hill,  at  the  voice  of  prayer  all  heads  uncovered.  In  the  War  of  1812 
an  officer  came  to  General  Jackson  and  said:  "  There  is  an  unusual  noise  in  the 
camp;  it  ought  to  be  stopped."  General  Jackson  said:  "What  is  the  noise?" 
The  officer  said:  "  It  is  the  voices  of  prayer  and  praise."  And  the  General  said: 
' '  God  forbid  that  prayer  and  praise  should  be  an  unusual  noise  in  the  encamp- 
ment; you  had  better  go  and  join  them."  Prayer  at  Valley  Forge,  prayer  at  Mon- 
mouth, prayer  at  Atlanta,  prayer  at  South  Mountain,  prayer  at  Gettysburg. 

"  Oh,"  says  some  infidel,  "  the  Northern  people  prayed  on  one  side,  and  the 
Southern  people  prayed  on  the  other  side,  and  so  it  dida't  amount  to  anything." 
And  I  have  heard  good  Christian  people  confounded  with  the  infidel  statement, 
when  it  is  as  plain  to  me  as  my  right  hand.  Yes,  the  Northern  people  prayed  in 
one  way,  and  the  Southern  people  prayed  in  another  way,  and  God  answered  in 
His  own  way,  giving  to  the  North  the  re- establishment  of  the  government,  and 
giving  to  the  South  larger  opportunities,  larger  than  she  had  ever  anticipated,  the 
harnessing  of  her  rivers  in  great  manufacturing  interests,  until  the  "Mobile,"  and 
the  "Tallapoosa,"  and  the  "  Chattahooche,"  are  Southern  Merrimacs,  and  the 
uncovering  of  great  mines  of  coal  and  iron,  of  which  the  world  knew  nothing,  and 
opening  before  her  opportunities  of  wealth  which  will  give  ninety-nine  per  cent 
more  of  affluence  than  she  ever  possessed.  And,  instead  of  the  black  hands  of 
American  slaves  emancipated,  there  are  the  more  industrious  black  hands  of  the 
coal  and  iron  industries  of  the  South  which  will  achieve  for  her  fabulous  and 
unimagined  wealth. 

And  there  are  domes  of  white  blossoms  where  spread  the  white  tent, 
And  there  are  plows  in  the  track  where  the  war  wagon  went, 
And  there  are  songs  where  they  lifted  up  Rachel's  lament. 

Oh,  you  are  a  stupid  man  if  you  do  not  understand  how  God  answered  Abra- 
ham Lincoln's  prayer  in  the  White  House,  and  Stonewall  Jackson's  prayer  in  the 
saddle,  and  answered  all  the  prayers  of  all  the  cathedrals  on  both  sides  of  MasoH 
and  Dixon's  Line.     God's  country  all  the  way  past.     God's  country  now. 

A   HAND-CLASP    ROUND  THE  WORLD. 

Put  His  name  in  your  pronunciamentoes,  put  His  name  on  your  ensigns,  put 
His  name  on  your  city  and  State  and  national  enterprises,  put  His  name  in  your 
hearts.     To  most  of  us  this  country  was  the  cradle,  and  to  most  of  us  it  will  be  the 


512 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


grave.  We  want  the  same  glorious  privileges  which  we  enjoy  to  go  down  to  our 
children.  We  cannot  sleep  well  the  last  sleep,  nor  will  the  pillow  of  dust  be  easy 
to  our  heads  until  we  are  assured  that  the  God  of  our  American  institutions  in  the 
past,  will  be  the  God  of  our  American  institutions  in  the  days  that  are  to  come.  Oh, 
when  all  the  rivers  which  empty  into  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  seas  shall  pull  on  fac- 
tory bands,  when  all  the  great  mines  of  gold,  and  silver,  and  iron,  and  coal  shall 
be  laid  bare  for  the  nation,  when  the  last  swamp  shall  be  reclaimed,  and  the  last 
jungle  cleared,  and  the  last  American  desert  Edenized,  and  from  sea  to  sea  the 
continent  shall  be  occupied  by  more  than  twelve  hundred  million  souls,  may  it  be 
found  that  moral  and  religious  influences  were  multiplied  in  more  rapid  ratio  than 
the  population.  And  then  there  shall  be  four  doxologies  coming  from  north,  and 
south,  and  east,  and  west — four  doxologies  rolling  toward  each  other  and  meeting 
mid-continent  with  such  dash  of  holy  joy  that  they  shall  mount  to  the  throne. 

And  Heaven's  high  arch  resound  again 
With  "  peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men." 


itBp^ix^xhxlii^  i5tC  '^xxlitt^^ 


THE   WRONGS    AND    ABUSES    OF    PUBLIC    TRUSTS. 

=ELDOM  do  the  morals  of  a  nation   rise  higher  than  the  virtue  of 
the  rulers.     Henry  VIII.  makes  impurity   popular  and  national. 
William  Wilberforce  gives  moral  tone  to   a  whole  empire.     Sin 
bestarred  and  epauletted  makes  crime  respectable  and  brings  it  to 
canonization.     Malarias  arise  from  the  swamp  and  float  upward, 
but  moral  distempers  descend   from   the  mountain   to  the  plain. 
The  slums  only  disgust  men  with  the  bestiality  of  crime,  but  dis- 
solute French  court  or  corrupt  congressional  delegation  puts  a  premium 
upon  iniquity.     Many  of  the  sins  of  the  world  are  only  royal  exiles.    They 
had  a  throne  once,  but  they  have  been  turned  out,  and  they  come  down 
now  to  be  entertained  by  the  humble  and  the  insignificant. 

There  is  not  a  land  on  earth  which  has  so  many  moral  men  in  author- 
ity as  this  land.  There  is  not  a  session  of  Legislature,  or  Congress,  or 
Cabinet,  but  in  it  are  thoroughly  Christian  men — men  whose  hands  would 
consume  a  bribe,  whose  cheek  has  never  been  flushed  with  intoxication, 
whose  tongue  has  never  been  smitten  of  blasphemy  or  stung  of  a  lie;  men 
whose  speeches  in  behalf  of  the  right  and  against  the  wrong  remind  us  of 
the  old  Scotch  Covenanters,  and  the  defiant  challenge  of  Martin  Luther,  and  the  red 
lightning  of  Micah  and  Habakkuk.  These  times  are  not  half  as  bad  as  the  times 
that  are  gone.  I  judge  so  from  the  fact  that  Aaron  Burr,  a  man  stuffed  with 
iniquity  until  he  could  hold  no  more,  the  debaucher  of  the  debauched,  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Legislature,  then  Attorney-General,  then  a  Senator  of  the  United  States, 
then  Vice-President,  and  then  at  last  coming  within  one  vote  of  the  highest 
position  in  this  nation.  I  judge  it  from  the  fact  that  more  than  half  a  century 
ago  the  Governor  of  New  York  disbanded  the  Legislature  because  it  was  too 
corrupt  to  sit  in  council. 

There  is  a  tendency  in  our  time  to  extol  the  past  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
present,  and  I  suppose  that  sixty  years  from  now  there  may  be  persons  who  will 
represent  some  of  us  as  angels,  although  now  things  are  so  unpromising.  But  the 
iniquity  of  the  past  is  no  excuse  for  the  public  wickedness  of  to-day,  and  so  I 
unroll  the  scroll.  Those  who  are  in  editorial  chairs  and  in  pulpits  may  not  hold 
33  (513) 


514  'THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

back  the  truth.     King  David  must  be  made  to  feel  the  reproof  of  Nathan,  and 

Felix  must  tremble  before  Paul,  and  Ananias  must  receive  the  punishment  of  liars, 

and  we  may  not  walk  with  muffled  feet  lest  we  wake  up  some  big  sinner.     If  we 

keep  back  the  truth,  what  will  we  do  in   the  day  when   the  Lord   rises  up  in 

judgment  and  we  are  tried  not  only  for  what  we  have  said,  but  for  what  we  have 

declined  to  say  ? 

INCOMPETENCY  OF  OFFICIALS. 

In  unrolling  the  scroll  of  public  wickedness,  I  first  find  incompetency  for 
office.  If  a  man  struggle  for  an  official  position  for  which  he  has  no  qualification, 
and  win  that  position,  he  commits  a  crime  against  God  and  against  society.  It  is 
no  sin  for  me  to  be  ignorant  of  medical  science;  but  if,  ignorant  of  medical  science, 
I  set  myself  up  among  professional  men  and  trifle  with  the  lives  of  people,  then 
the  charlatanism  becomes  positive  knavery.  It  is  no  sin  for  me  to  be  ignorant  of 
machinery;  but  if,  knowing  nothing  about  it,  I  attempt  to  take  a  steamer  across  to 
Southampton  and  through  darkness  and  storm  I  hold  the  lives  of  hundreds  of 
passengers,  then  all  who  are  slain  by  that  shipwreck  may  hold  me  accountable. 
But  what  shall  I  say  of  those  who  attempt  to  doctor  our  institutions  without 
qualification  and  who  attempt  to  engineer  our  political  affairs  across  the  rough 
and  stormy  sea,  having  no  qualification  ?  We  had  at  one  time  in  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  men  who  put  one  tariff  upon  linseed  oil  and  another  tariff  upon 
flaxseed  oil,  not  knowing  they  were  the  same  thing.  We  have  had  men  in  our 
Legislatures  who  knew  not  whether  to  vote  yes  or  no  until  they  had  seen  the  wnik 
of  the  leader.  Polished  civilians  acquainted  with  all  our  institutions  run  over  in  a 
stampede  for  office  by  men  who  have  not  the  first  qualification.  And  so  there  have 
been  school  commissioners  sometimes  nominated  in  grog-shops  and  hurrahed  for 
hy  the  rabble,  the  men  elected  not  able  to  read  their  own  commissions.  And 
judges  of  courts  who  have  given  sentence  to  criminals  in  such  inaccurac\'  of 
phraseology  that  the  criminal  at  the  bar  has  been  more  amused  at  the  stupidity  of 
the  bench  then  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  his  own  punishment.  I  arraign  incom- 
petency for  office  as  one  of  the  great  crimes  of  this  day  in  public  places. 

I  unroll  still  further  the  scroll  of  public  wickedness,  and  I  come  to  intemper- 
ance. There  has  been  a  great  improvement  in  this  direction.  The  senators  who 
"were  more  celebrated  for  their  drvmkenness  than  for  their  statesmanship  are  dead  or 
•compelled  to  stay  at  home.  I  very  well  remember  that  there  went  from  the  State 
of  New  York  at  one  time,  and  from  the  State  of  Delaware,  and  from  the  State  of 
Illinois,  and  from  other  States  men  who  were  notorious  everywhere  as  inebriates. 
The  day  is  past.  The  grog-shop  under  the  national  Capitol,  to  which  our  rulers 
used  to  go  to  get  inspiration  before  they  spoke  upon  the  great  moral  and  financial 
and  commercial  interests  of  the  country,  has  been  disbanded;  but  I  am  told  even 
now  under  the  national  Capitol  there  are  places  where  our  rulers  can  get  some 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  515 

very  strong  lemonade.  But  there  has  been  a  vast  improvement.  At  one  time  I 
went  to  Washington,  to  the  door  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  sent  in  my 
card  to  an  old  friend.  I  had  not  seen  him  for  many  years,  and  the  last  time  I  saw 
him  he  was  conspicuous  for  his  integrity  and  uprightness;  but  that  day  when  he 
came  out  to  greet  me  he  was  staggering  drunk. 

DRUNKARDS   IN   OUR  LEGISLATURES. 

The  temptation  to  intemperance  in  public  places  is  simply  terrific.  How  often 
there  have  been  men  in  public  places  who  have  disgraced  the  nation.  Of  the  men 
who  were  prominent  in  political  circles  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago,  how  few 
died  respectable  deaths.  Those  who  died  of  delirium  tremens  or  kindred  diseases 
were  in  the  majority.  The  doctor  fixed  up  the  case  very  well,  and  in  his  report 
of  it  said  it  was  gout,  or  it  was  rheumatism,  or  it  was  obstruction  of  the  liver,  or  it 
was  exhaustion  from  patriotic  services,  but  God  knew  and  we  all  knew  it  was 
whisky  !  That  which  smote  the  villain  in  the  dark  alley,  smote  down  the  great 
orator  and  the  great  legislator.  The  one  you  wrapped  in  a  rough  cloth,  and 
pushed  into  a  rough  coffin,  and  carried  out  in  a  box  wagon,  and  let  him  down  into 
a  pauper's  grave  without  a  prayer  or  a  benediction.  Around  the  other  gathered 
the  pomp  of  the  land;  and  lordly  men  walked  with  uncovered  heads  beside  the 
hearse  tossing  with  plumes  on  the  way  to  a  grave  to  be  adorned  with  a  white  marble 
shaft,  all  four  sides  covered  with  eulogium.  The  one  man  was  killed  by  logwood 
rum  at  two  cents  a  glass,  the  other  by  a  beverage  three  dollars  a  bottle.  I  write 
both  their  epitaphs.  I  write  the  one  epitaph  with  my  lead-pencil  on  the  shingle 
over  the  pauper's  grave;  I  write  the  other  epitaph  with  chisel,  cutting  on  the 
white  marble  of  the  senator:    "  Slain  by  strong  drink." 

You  know  as  well  as  I  that  again  and  again  dissipation  has  been  no  hindrance 
to  office  in  this  country.  Did  we  not  at  one  time  have  a  Secretary  of  the  United 
States  carried  home  dead  drunk  ?  Did  we  not  have  a  Vice-President  sworn  in  so 
intoxicated  the  whole  land  hid  its  head  in  shame  ?  Have  we  not  in  other  times 
had  men  in  the  Congress  of  the  nation  by  day  making  pleas  in  behalf  of  the 
interests  of  the  country,  and  bj^  night  illustrating  what  Solomon  said:  "  He  goeth 
after  her  straightway  as  an  ox  to  the  slaughter  and  as  a  fool  to  the  correction  of 
the  stocks,  until  a  dart  strikes  through  his  liver. ' '  Judges  and  jurors  and  attor- 
neys, sometimes  trying  important  causes  by  day,  and  by  night  carousing  together 
in  iniquity.  What  was  it  that  defeated  the  armies  sometimes  in  the  late  war  ? 
Drunkenness  in  the  saddle.  What  mean  those  graves  on  the  heights  of  Fredericks- 
burg? As  you  go  to  Richmond  you  see  them.  Drunkenness  in  the  saddle.  So 
again  and  again  in  the  courts  we  have  had  demonstration  of  the  fact  that  impurity 
walks  under  the  chandeliers  of  the  mansion  and  drowses  on  damask  upholstery. 
Iniquity  permitted  to  run  unchallenged  if  it  only  be  affluent.     Stand  back  and  let 


5i6  THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE. 

this  libertine  ride  past  in  his  $5000  equipage,  but  clutch  by  the  neck  that  poor  sin- 
ner who  transgresses  on  a  small  scale,  and  fetch  him  up  to  the  police  court,  and  give 
him  a  ride  in  the  city  van.  Down  with  small  villainy  !  Hurrah  for  grand 
iniquity  !  If  5^ou  have  not  noticed  that  intemperance  is  one  of  the  crimes  in  public 
places  to-day,  you  have  not  been  to  Albany,  and  you  have  not  been  to  Harrisburg, 
and  you  have  not  been  to  Trenton,  and  you  have  not  been  to  Washington.  The 
whole  land  cries  out  against  the  iniquity.  But  the  two  political  parties  are  silent 
lest  they  lose  votes,  and  many  of  the  newspapers  are  silent  lest  they  lose  subscrib- 
ers, and  many  of  the  pulpits  are  silent  because  there  are  offenders  in  the  pews. 
Meanwhile  God's  indignation  gathers  like  the  flashings  around  a  threatening  cloud 
just  before  the  swoop  of  a  tornado.  The  whole  land  cries  out  to  be  delivered.  The 
nation  sweats  great  drops  of  blood.  It  is  crucified,  not  between  two  thieves,  but 
between  a  thousand,  while  nations  pass  by  wagging  their   heads,   and  saying: 

"Aha!  Aha  !" 

BRIBERY  AND  CORRUPTION. 

I  unroll  the  scroll  of  public  iniquity  and  I  come  to  bribery — bribery^  by  money, 
bribery  by  proffered  office.  Do  not  charge  it  upon  American  institutions.  It  is  a 
sin  we  got  from  the  other  side  the  water.  Francis  Bacon,  the  thinker  of  his 
century,  Francis  Bacon,  of  whom  it  was  said  when  men  heard  him  speak  they 
were  only  fearful  that  he  would  stop,  Francis  Bacon,  with  all  his  castles  and  all 
his  emoluments,  destroyed  by  briber>^  fined  $200,000,  or  what  is  equal  to  our 
$200,000,  and  hurled  into  London  Tower,  and  his  only  excuse  was  he  said  all  his 
predecessors  had  done  the  same  thing.  Lord  Chancellor  Macclesfield  destroyed  by 
bribery.  Lord  Chancellor  Waterbury  destroyed  by  bribery.  Benedict  Arnold 
selling  the  fort  in  the  Highlands  for  $31,575.  For  this  sin  Georgy  betrayed 
Hungary,  and  Ahithophel  forsook  David,  and  Judas  kissed  Christ.  And  it  is 
abroad  in  our  land.  You  know  in  many  of  the  Legislatures  of  this  country-  it  has 
been  impossible  to  get  a  bill  through  unless  it  had  financial  consideration.  The 
question  has  been  asked  softly,  sometimes  very  softly  asked,  in  regard  to  a  bill: 
"  Is  there  any  money  in  it?"  and  the  lobbies  of  the  Legislatures  and  the  National 
Capitol  have  been  crowded  with  railroad  men  and  manufacturers  and  contractors, 
and  the  iniquity  has  become  so  great  that  sometimes  reformers  and  philanthropists 
have  been  laughed  out  of  Harrisburg,  and  Albany,  and  Trenton,  and  Washington 
because  they  came  empty-handed.  "  You  vote  for  this  bill  and  I'll  vote  for  that 
bill."  "You  favor  that  monopoly  of  a  moneyed  institution  and  I'll  favor  the 
other  monopoly  of  another  institution."  And  here  is  a  bill  that  is  going  to  be 
very  hard  to  get  through  the  Legislature,  and  you  will  call  some  friends  together 
at  a  midnight  banquet,  and  while  they  are  intoxicated  j^ou  will  have  them  promise 
to  vote  your  way.  Here  are  $5000  for  prudent  distribution  in  this  direction,  and 
here  are  $1000  for  prudent  distribution  in  that  direction.     Now,  we  are  within 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


51' 


four  votes  of  having  enough.  You  give  $5000  to  that  intelligent  member  from 
Westchester,  and  you  give  $2000  to  that  stupid  member  from  Ulster,  and  now  we 
are  within  two  votes  of  having  it.  Give  $500  to  this  member  who  will  be  sick  and 
stay  at  home  and  $300  to  this  member  who  will  go  to  see  his  great  aunt  languishing 
in  her  last  sickness.  Now  the  day  has  come  for  the  passing  of  the  bill.  The 
Speaker's  gavel  strikes.      "Senators,  are  you  ready  for  the  question?     All  in 


PURIFIED   THROUGH   FIRE. 


favor  of  voting  away  these  thousands  or  millions  of  dollars  will  say  '  Ay. '  ' ' 
"  Ay  !  Ay  !  Ay  !  Ay  !"      "  The  ays  have  it. ' ' 


RESOLUTION  AHEAD. 


Some  of  the  finest  houses  of  our  cities  were  built  out  of  money  paid  for  votes 
in  the  Legislatures.  Five  hundred  small  wheels  in  political  machinery  with  cogs 
reaching  into  one  great  centre  wheel,  and  that  wheel  has  a  tire  of  railroad  iron 


5i8  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

and  a  crank  to  it  on  which  Satan  puts  his  hand  and  turns  the  centre  wheel,  and 
that  turns  the  five  hundred  other  wheels  of  political  machiner}-.  While  in  this 
country  it  is  becoming  harder  and  harder  for  the  great  mass  of  the  people  to  get  a 
living,  there  are  too  many  men  in  this  country  who  have  their  two  millions,  and 
their  ten  millions,  and  their  twenty  millions,  and  carry  the  legislators  in  one 
pocket  and  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  in  the  other.  And  there  is  trouble 
ahead.  Revolution.  I  pray  God  it  may  be  peaceful  revolution  and  at  the  ballot- 
box.  The  time  must  come  in  this  country  when  men  shall  be  sent  into  public 
position  who  cannot  be  purchased.  I  do  not  want  the  union  of  Church  and  State, 
but  I  declare  that  if  the  Church  of  God  does  not  show  itself  in  favor  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  as  well  as  in  favor  of  the  L,ord,  the  time  will  come  when  the 
Church  as  an  institution  will  be  extinct,  and  Christ  w^ill  go  down  again  to  the 
beach,  and  choose  twelve  plain,  honest  fishermen  to  come  up  into  the  apostleship 
of  a  new  dispensation  of  righteousness,  manward  and  Godward. 

Bribery  is  cursing  this  land.  The  evil  started  with  its  greatest  power  during 
the  last  war,  when  men  said,  "  Now  you  give  me  this  contract  above  every  other 
applicant,  and  you  shall  have  ten  per  cent  of  all  I  make  by  it.  You  pass  these 
broken-down  cavalry  horses  as  good,  and  you  shall  have  five  thousand  dollars  as  a 
bonus."  "Bonus"  is  the  word.  And  so  they  sent  down  to  your  fathers,  and 
brothers,  and  sons,  rice  that  was  worm-eaten,  and  bread  that  was  mould}^  and 
meat  that  was  rank,  and  blankets  that  were  shoddy,  and  cavalry  horses  that 
stumbled  in  the  charge,  and  tents  that  sifted  the  rain  into  exhausted  faces.  But  it 
was  all  right.  They  got  the  bonus.  I  never  so  much  believed  in  a  republican 
form  of  government  as  I  do  to-day,  for  the  simple  reason  that  any  other  style  of 
government  would  have  been  consumed  long  ago.  There  have  been  swindles 
enacted  in  this  nation  within  the  last  thirty  years  enough  to  swamp  three  monar- 
chies. The  Democratic  party  filled  its  cup  of  iniquity  before  it  went  out  of  power 
before  the  war.  Then  the  Republican  party  came  along,  and  its  opportunities 
through  the  contracts  were  greater,  and  so  it  filled  its  cup  of  iniquity  a  little 
sooner,  and  there  they  lie  to-day,  the  Democratic  party  and  the  Republican  party, 
side  by  side,  great  loathsome  carcasses  of  iniquity,  each  one  worse  than  the  other. 
Tens  of  thousands  of  good  citizens  in  all  the  parties;  but  5^ou  know  as  well  as  I 
do  that  party  organization  in  this  country  is  utterly,  utterly  corrupt. 

YOUR  DUTY  TO  YOUR  COUNTRY. 

Now,  if  there  were  nothing  for  you  and  for  me  to  do  in  this  matter  I  would 
not  present  this  subject.  There  are  several  things  for  us  to  do.  First,  stand 
aloof  from  political  office  unless  you  have  your  moral  principles  thoroughly  settled. 
Do  not  go  into  this  blaze  of  temptation  unless  you  are  fireproof.  Hundreds  of 
respectable  men  have  been  destroyed  for  this  life  and  the  life  to  come  because  they 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  519 

had  not  moral  principle  to  stand  office.  You  go  into  some  office  of  authority 
without  moral  principle,  and  before  you  get  through  you  will  lie,  and  }ou  will 
swear,  and  you  will  gamble,  and  you  will  steal.  Another  thing  for  you  to  do  is  to 
be  faithful  at  the  ballot-box.  Do  not  stand  on  your  dignity  and  say,  "  I'll  not  go 
where  the  rabble  are."  If  need  be,  put  on  your  old  clothes  and  just  push  yourself 
through  amid  the  unwashed,  and  vote.  Vote  for  vicn  ivho  love  God  and  hate  mm. 
You  cannot  say,  you  ought  not  to  say,  "  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  this  matter." 
Then  you  will  insult  the  graves  of  your  fathers  who  died  for  the  establishment  of 
the  government  and  will  insult  the  graves  of  your  children  who  may  live  to  feel 
the  results  of  your  negligence.  lyCt  us  have  Decoration  Day  for  the  brave  who 
died  for  liberty,  but  let  us  also  have  praise-giving,  honor  and  encouragement  for 
those  who  are  still  fighting  for  the  establishing  and  perpetuation  of  honesty  in  our 
government.  The  wife  may  not  sorrow  so  greatly  for  the  sire  who  dies  for  his 
country,  as  the  nation  may  grieve  for  the  acts  of  those  that  seek  to  destroy  the 
bulwarks  of  national  integrity.  Evangelize  the  people.  Get  the  hearts  of  the 
people  right,  and  they  will  vote  right.  I  know  there  are  a  great  many  good 
people  who  think  that  God  ought  to  be  recognized  in  the  Constitution,  and  they 
are  making  a  move  in  that  direction.  I  am  most  anxious  that  God  shall  be  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people.     Get  their  hearts  right,  and  then  they  will  vote  right. 

If  there  be  fifty  million  people  in  this  country,  then  at  least  a  fifty-millionth 
part  of  the  responsibility  rests  on  you.  What  we  want  is  a  great  revival  of 
religion  reaching  from  sea  to  sea,  and  it  is  going  to  come.  A  newspaper  gentle- 
man asked  me  a  few  weeks  ago  what  I  thought  of  revivals.  I  said  I  thought  scv 
much  of  them  I  never  put  my  faith  in  anything  else.  We  want  thousands  in  a 
day,  hundreds  of  thousands  in  a  day,  nations  in  a  day.  Get  all  the  people 
evangelized,  brought  under  Christianized  influences.  These  great  evils  that  we 
now  so  much  deplore  will  be  banished  from  the  land.  And  remember  that  we  are 
at  last  to  be  judged,  not  as  nations,  but  as  individuals — in  that  day  w^hen  empires 
and  republics  shall  alike  go  down  and  we  shall  have  to  give  account  for  ourselves, 
for  what  we  have  done  and  for  what  we  have  neglected  to  do — in  that  day  when 
the  earth  itself  will  be  a  heap  of  ashes  scattered  in  the  blast  of  the  nostrils  of  the 
Lord  God  Almighty.     God  save  the  United  States  of  America  ! 


THE  GOOD  AND   EVIL   INFLUENCES   IN    MEN. 

OD  made  the  universe  on  the  plan  of  a  circle.  While  yet  people 
thought  that  the  world  was  flat,  and  thousands  of  years  before 
they  found  out  that  it  was  round,  Isaiah  intimated  the  shape 
of  it,  God  sitting  upon  the  circle  of  the  earth.  The  most 
beautiful  figure  in  all  geometry  is  the  circle.  There  are  in 
the  natural  world  straight  lines,  angles,  parallelograms,  diag- 
onals, quadrangles;  but  these  evidently  are  not  God's  favor- 
ites. Almost  everj^where  you  find  Him  geometrizing  you 
find  the  circle  dominant — if  not  the  circle  then  the  curve,  which  is  a  circle  that 
died  young.  If  it  had  lived  long  enough  it  would  have  been  a  full  orb,  a  per- 
iphery. An  ellipse  is  a  circle  pressed  only  a  little  too  hard  at  the  sides.  Giant's 
Causeway  in  Ireland  shows  what  God  thinks  of  mathematics.  There  are  many 
thousand  columns  of  rocks — octagonal,  hexagonal,  pentagonal.  These  rocks  seem 
to  have  been  made  by  rule  and  by  compass.  Every  artist  has  his  moulding-room, 
where  he  may  make  fifty  shapes,  but  he  chooses  one  shape  as  preferable  to  all  the 
others.  I  will  not  say  that  the  Giant's  Causeway  was  the  world's  moulding-room, 
but  I  do  say,  out  of  a  great  may  figures,  God  seems  to  have  selected  the  circle  as 
the  best.  The  stars  in  a  circle,  the  moon  in  a  circle,  the  sun  in  a  circle,  the 
universe  in  a  circle,  and  the  throne  of  God  the  centre  of  that  circle. 

When  men  build  churches  they  ought  to  imitate  the  idea  of  the  great  Archi- 
tect and  put  the  audience  in  a  circle,  knowing  that  the  tides  of  emotion  roll  more 
easily  that  way  than  in  straight  lines.  Six  thousand  years  ago  God  flung  this 
world  out  of  His  right  hand;  but  He  did  not  throw  it  out  in  a  straight  line,  but 
curvilinear,  with  a  lease  of  love  holding  it  so  as  to  bring  it  back  again.  The 
world  started  from  His  hand  pure  and  Edenic.  It  has  been  rolling  on  through 
regions  of  moral  ice  and  distemper.  How  long  it  will  roll,  God  only  knows;  but 
it  will  in  due  time  make  a  complete  circuit  and  come  back  to  the  place  where  it 
started — the  hand  of  God — pure  and  Edenic. 

GREATNESS  OF  THE   PAST. 

The  history  of  the  world  goes  in  a  circle.  Why  is  it  the  shipping  in  our  day 
is  improving  so  rapidly  ?  It  is  because  men  are  imitating  the  old  model  of  Noah's 
ark.     A  .ship-carpenter  gives  that  as  his  opinion .     Although  so  much  derided  by 

(520) 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


521 


small  wits,  that  ship  of  Noah's  time  beat  the  "  Etruria  "  aud  the  "  Germanic,"  of 
which  we  boast  so  much.  Where  is  the  ship  on  the  sea  to-day  that  could  outride  a 
deluge  in  which  the  heaven  aud  the  earth  were  wrecked,  landing  all  the  passengers 


SHADOW   PICTURES. 


in  safety,  two  of  each  kind  of  living  creatures,  thousands  of  species.  Pomology 
will  go  on  with  its  achievements  until  after  many  centuries  the  world  will  have 
plums  and  pears  equal  to  the  Paradisaical.     The  art  of  gardening  will  grow  for 


522  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

centuries,  and  after  the  Downings  and  the  Mitchells  of  the  world  have  done  their 
best,  in  the  far  future  the  art  of  gardening  will  come  up  to  the  arborescence  of  the 
year  .1.  If  the  makers  of  colored  glass  go  on  improving  they  may  in  some  cen- 
turies be  able  to  make  something  equal  to  the  east  window  of  York  Minster, 
which  was  built  in  1290.  We  are  six  centuries  behind  those  artists,  but  the  world 
must  keep  on  toiling  until  it  has  made  the  complete  circuit  and  come  up  to  the 
skill  of  those  very  men.  If  the  world  continues  to  improve  in  masonry  we  shall 
have  after  a  while,  perhaps  after  the  advance  of  centuries,  mortar  equal  to  that 
which  I  saw  in  the  wall  of  an  exhumed  English  cit}-,  built  in  the  time  of  the 
Romans,  1600  years  ago — that  mortar  to-day  is  as  good  as  the  day  in  which  it  was 
made,  having  outlasted  the  brick  and  the  stone.  I  say,  after  hundreds  of  years, 
masonry  may  advance  to  that  point.  If  the  world  stands  long  enough  we  may 
have  a  city  as  large  as  they  had  in  olden  times.  Babylon,  five  times  the  size 
of  Eondon.  You  go  into  the  potteries  of  England  and  you  find  them  making 
cups  and  vases  after  the  style  of  the  cups  and  vases  exhumed  from  Pompeii. 
The  world  is  not  going  back.  Oh,  no  !  But  it  is  swinging  in  a  circle,  and  will 
come  back  to  the  styles  of  pottery  known  so  long  ago  as  the  da3^s  of  Pompeii. 
The  world  must  keep  on  progressing  until  it  makes  the  complete  circuit.  The 
curve  is  in  the  right  direction.  The  curve  will  keep  on  until  it  becomes  a 
circle. 

What  is  true  in  the  material  universe  is  true  in  God's  moral  government  and 
spiritual  arrangement.  That  is  the  meaning  of  Ezekiel's  wheel.  All  commen- 
tators agree  in  saying  that  the  wheel  means  God's  providence.  But  a  wheel  is  of 
no  use  unless  it  turn,  and  if  it  turn  it  turns  around,  and  if  it  turn  around  it  moves 
in  a  circle.  What  then  ?  Are  we  parts  of  a  great  iron  machine,  whirled  around 
whether  we  will  or  not,  the  victims  of  inexorable  fate  ?  No  ?  So  far  from  that,  I 
shall  show  you  that  we  ourselves  start  the  circle  of  good  or  bad  actions,  and  that 
it  will  surely  come  around  to  us,  unless  by  divine  intervention  it  be  hindered. 
Those  bad  or  good  actions  may  make  the  circuit  of  many  years;  bvit  come  back  to 
us  they  will  as  certainh'  as  that  God  sits  on  the  circle  of  the  earth.  Jezebel,  the 
worst  woman  of  the  Bible,  slew  Naboth  because  she  wanted  his  vineyard.  While 
the  dogs  were  eating  the  body  of  Naboth,  Elisha,  the  prophet,  put  down  his 
compass  and  marked  a  circle  from  those  dogs  clear  around  to  the  dogs  that 
should  eat  the  body  of  Jezebel,  the  murderess.  "Impossible,"  the  people  said; 
"  that  will  never  happen."  Who  is  that  being  flung  out  of  the  palace  win- 
dow? Jezebel.  A  few  hours  after  they  came  around,  hoping  to  bury  her. 
They  find  only  the  palms  of  her  hands  and  the  skull.  The  dogs  that  devoured 
Jezebel,  and  the  dogs  that  devoured  Naboth  !  Oh  !  what  a  swift,  what  an 
awful  circuit  ! 


THE  TATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 
THE  MUTATIONS  OF  TIME. 


525 


But  it  is  sometimes  the  case  that  this  circle  sweeps  through  a  centurj'  or 
through  many  centuries.  The  world  started  as  a  theocracy  for  government ;  that 
is,  God  was  President  and  Emperor  of  the  world.  People  got  tired  of  a  theocracy. 
They  said:  "  We  don't  want  God  directly  interfering  with  the  affairs  of  the  world; 
give  us  a  monarchy."  The  world  had  a  monarchy.  From  a  monarchy  it  is  going 
to  have  a  limited  monarchy.  After  a  while  the  limited  monarchy  will  be  given 
up,  and  the  republican  form  of  government  will  be  everywhere  dominant  and 
recognized.     Then  the  world  will  get  tired  of  the  republican  form  of  government, 


THE   CIRCLE   OF   PEACE. 

and  it  will  have  an  anarchy,  which  is  no  government  at  all.  And  then,  all  nations 
finding  out  that  man  is  not  capable  of  righteously  governing  man,  will  cry-  out 
again  for  a  theocracy,  and  say:  "  Eet  God  come  back  and  conduct  the  affairs  of 
the  world."  Every  step — monarchy,  limited  monarchy,  republicanism,  anarchy, 
only  different  steps  between  the  first  theocracy  and  the  last  theocracy,  or  segments 
of  the  great  circle  of  the  earth  on  which  God  sits. 

But  do  not  become  impatient  because  you  cannot  see  the  cur\'e  of  events,  and 
therefore  conclude  that  God's  government  is  going  to  break  down.  History  tells 
us  that  in  the  making  of  the  pyramids  it  took  2000  men  two  years  to  drag  one 
great  stone  from  the  quarry  and  put  it  into  the  pyramids.  Well,  now,  if  men, 
short-lived,  can  afibrd  to  work  so  slowly  as  that,  cannot  God,  in  the  building  of 


524  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

the  eternities,  afford  to  wait?  What  though  God  should  take  10,000  years  to 
draw  a  circle?  Shall  we  take  our  little  watch,  which  we  have  to  wind  up  every 
night  lest  it  run  down,  and  hold  it  up  beside  the  clock  of  eternal  ages?  If, 
according  to  the  Bible,  1000  years  are  in  God's  sight  as  a  day,  then,  according  to 
that  calculation,  the  6000  years  of  the  world's  existence  has  been  only  to  God  as 
from  Monday  to  Saturday. 

But  it  is  often  the  case  that  the  rebound  is  quicker,  and  the  circle  is  sooner  com- 
pleted. You  resolve  that  you  wnll  do  w^hat  good  you  can.  In  one  week  you  put  a 
word  of  counsel  in  the  heart  of  a  Sabbath-school  child.  During  the  same  week 
you  give  a  letter  of  introduction  to  a  young  man  struggling  in  business.  During 
the  same  week  you  made  an  exhortation  in  a  prayer-meeting.  It  is  all  gone;  you 
will  never  hear  of  it  perhaps,  you  think.  A  few  years  after  a  man  comes  to  you 
and  says:  "You  don't  know  me,  do  j^ou?"  You  say:  "No,  I  don't  remember 
ever  to  have  seen  you."  "  Why,"  he  says,  "  I  was  in  the  Sabbath-school  class 
of  which  you  were  the  teacher.  One  Sunday  you  invited  me  to  Christ.  I  accepted 
the  offer.  You  see  that  church  with  two  towers,  yonder?"  "Yes,"  you  say. 
He  says:  "That  is  where  I  preach."  Or,  "  Do  you  see  that  Governor's  house  ? 
That  is  where  I  live. ' '  One  day  a  man  comes  to  you  and  says:  ' '  Good-morning." 
You  look  at  him  and  say:  "  Why,  you  have  the  advantage  of  me;  I  cannot  place 
3'ou."  He  says;  "  Don't  you  remember,  thirty  years  ago,  giving  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  a  young  man — a  letter  of  introduction  to  a  prominent  merchant?" 
"  Yes,  I  do."  He  says:  "  I  am  the  man.  That  was  my  first  step  toward  a  for- 
tune; but  I  have  retired  from  business  now,  and  am  giving  my  time  to  philan- 
thropies and  public  interests.  Come  up  to  my  country  place  and  see  me."  Or  a 
man  comes  to  you  and  says:  "  I  want  to  introduce  myself  to  you.  I  went  into  a 
prayer-meeting  some  years  ago.  I  sat  back  near  the  door.  You  arose  to  make  an 
exhortation.  That  talk  changed  the  course  of  my  life,  and  if  I  ever  get  to  heaven, 
I  will  owe  my  salvation  to  you."  In  only  ten,  twenty,  or  thirty  years,  the  circle 
swept  out  and  swept  back  again  to  j^our  own  grateful  heart. 

But  sometimes  it  is  a  wider  circle  and  does  not  return  for  a  great  while.  I 
saw  a  bill  of  expenses  for  burning  Eatimer  and  Ridley.  The  bill  of  expenses 
says:  One  load  of  fir  fagots,  three  shillings,  four  pence;  cartage  of  four  loads  of 
wood,  two  shillings;  a  post,  one  shilling,  four  pence;  two  chains,  three  shillings, 
four  pence;  two  staples,  six  pence;  four  laborers,  two  .shillings,  eight  pence;  total 
of  tw^elve  shillings,  six  pence.  That  was  a  cheap  fire,  considering  all  the  circum- 
stances; but  it  kindled  a  light  which  shone  all  around  the  world  and  around  the 
martyr  spirit;  and  out  from  that  burning  rolled  the  circle,  wider  and  wider,  start- 
ing other  circles,  convoluting,  over-running,  circumscribing,  over-arching  all 
heaven. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


525 


THY  SINS  WILL  DISCOVER  YOU. 

But  what  is  true  of  the  good  is  just  as  true  of  the  bad.  You  utter  a  slander 
against  your  neighbor.  It  has  gone  forth  from  your  teeth.  It  will  never  come 
back,  you  think.  You  have  done  the  man  all  the  mischief  you  can.  You  rejoice 
to  see  him  wince.  You  say:  "Didn't  I  give  it  to  him?"  That  word  has  gone 
out,  that  slanderous  word,  on  its  poisonous  and  blasted  way.  You  think  it  will 
never  do  you  any  harm.  But  I  am  watching  that  word,  and  I  see  it  beginning  to 
curve,  and  it  curves  around,  and  it  is  aiming  at  your  heart.  You  had  better  dodge 
it.     You  cannot  dodge  it.     It  rolls  into  your  bosom,  and  after  it  rolls  in  a  word  of 


FAST   FALLS  THE  EVEN   TIDE. 

an  old  book,  which  says:   "With  what  measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to 
you  again." 

You  maltreat  an  aged  parent.  You  begrudge  him  the  room  in  your  house. 
You  are  impatient  of  his  whimsicalities  and  garrulity.  It  makes  you  mad  to  hear 
him  tell  the  same  story  twice.  You  give  him  food  he  cannot  masticate.  You  wish 
he  was  away.  You  wonder  if  he  is  going  to  live  forever.  He  will  be  gone  ver}^ 
soon.  His  steps  are  shorter  and  shorter.  He  is  going  to  stop.  But  God  has  an 
account  to  settle  with  5^ou  on  that  subject.  After  a  while  your  eye  will  be  dim  and 
your  gait  will  halt,  and  the  sound  of  the  grinding  will  be  slow,  and  you  will  tell 


526  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

the  same  story  twice,  and  your  children  will  wonder  if  you  are  going  to  live  for- 
ever, and  wonder  if  you  will  never  be  taken  away.  They  called  you  "  father" 
once;  now  they  call  you  "the  old  man."  If  you  live  a  few  years  longer 
they  will  call  you  ' '  the  old  chap. ' '  What  are  those  rough  words  with  which 
your  children  are  accosting  you  ?  They  are  the  echo  of  the  very  words  you  used 
in  the  ear  of  your  old  father  forty  years  ago.  What  is  that  which  you  are  trying 
to  chew,  but  find  it  unmasticable,  and  your  jaws  ache  as  you  surrender  the  attempt  ? 
Perhaps  it  may  be  the  gristle  which  you  gave  to  your  father  for  his  breakfast  forty 
years  ago.  A  gentleman  passing  along  the  street  saw  a  son  dragging  his  father 
by  the  hair  of  his  head.  The  gentleman,  outraged  at  this  brutal  conduct,  was 
about  to  punish  the  offender,  when  the  old  man  arose  and  said:  "  Don't  hurt  him; 
it's  all  right;  forty  years  ago  this  morning  I  dragged  out  my  father  by  the  hair  of 
his  head."  Other  sins  may  be  adjourned  to  the  next  world,  but  maltreatment  of 
parents  is  punished  in  this. 

INFLUENCE  OF  VOLTAIRE  AND   MARAT. 

The  circle  turns  quickly,  very  quickly.  Oh,  what  a  stupendous  thought  that 
the  good  and  the  evil  we  start  come  back  to  us  !  Do  you  know  that  the  judgment 
day  will  be  onl}^  the  point  at  which  the  circle  joins — the  good  and  the  bad  we  have 
done  coming  back  to  us,  unless  divine  intervention  hinders — coming  back  to  us, 
welcome  of  delight  or  curse  of  condemnation  ?  Oh,  I  would  like  to  see  Paul,  the 
invalid  missionary,  at  the  moment  when  his  influence  comes  to  full  orb — his  influ- 
ence rolling  out  through  Antioch,  through  Cyprus,  through  Lystra,  through 
Corinth,  through  Athens,  through  Asia,  through  Europe,  through  America, 
through  the  first  century,  through  five  centuries,  through  twenty  centuries, 
through  all  the  succeeding  centuries,  through  earth,  through  heaven,  and,  at  last, 
the  wave  of  influence  having  made  full  circuit,  strikes  his  great  soul  !  Oh,  then  I 
would  like  to  see  him  !  No  one  can  tell  the  wide  sweep  of  the  circle  of  his  influ- 
ence, save  the  One  who  is  seated  on  the  circle  of  the  earth.  I  should  not  want  to 
see  the  countenance  of  Voltaire  when  his  influence  comes  to  full  orb.  When  the 
fatal  hemorrhage  seized  him  at  eighty-three  years  of  age  his  influence  did  not  cease. 
The  most  brilliant  man  of  his  century,  he  had  used  all  his  faculties  for  assaulting 
Christianity;  his  bad  influence  widening  through  France,  widening  out  through 
Germany,  widening  through  all  Europe,  widening  through  America,  widening 
through  the  years  that  have  gone  by  since  he  died,  widening  through  earth,  widen- 
ing through  hell;  until  at  last  the  accumulated  influence  of  his  bad  life,  in  fiery 
surge  of  omnipotent  wrath,  will  beat  against  his  destroyed  spirit,  and  at  that 
moment  it  will  be  enough  to  make  the  black  hair  of  eternal  darkness  turn  white 
with  horror.  Nor  would  I  want  to  see  the  countenance  of  Marat  as  he  la}^  in  his 
bath  struggling,  with  a  dagger  in  his  heart,  a  victim  of  outraged  justice,  for  the 


DAY  DREAMS. — Painting  by  L.  Karger. 


(527) 


528 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


crimes  he  had  perpetrated.  No  one  can  tell  how  these  two  bad  men's  influence 
girdled  the  earth,  save  the  One  who  is  seated  on  the  circle  of  the  world — the  Lord 
Almighty. 

"  Well,  now,"  people  say,  "  this  is  in  some  respects  a  very  glad  theory^,  and 
in  others  a  very  sad  one;  we  would  like  to  have  all  the  good  we  have  ever  done 
come  back  to  us,  but  the  thought  that  all  the  sins  we  have  ever  committed  will 
come  back  to  us  fills  us  with  affright. ' '     My  brother,  I  have  to  tell  you  God  can 


TIIK    SOXO    OF   THK    SWAN. 

break  that  circle  and  will  do  so  at  your  call.  I  can  bring  twenty  passages  of 
Scripture  to  prove  that  when  God  for  Christ's  sake  forgives  man,  the  sins  of  his 
past  life  never  come  back.  The  wheel  may  roll  on  and  roll  on,  but  you  take  your 
position  behind  the  cross,  and  the  wheel  strikes  the  cross  and  it  is  shattered  forever. 
The  sins  fly  off  from  the  circle  into  the  perpendicular,  falling  at  right  angles  with 
complete  oblivion.  Forgiven  !  forgiven  !  The  meanest  thing  a  man  can  do  is, 
after  some  difficulty  has  been  settled,  to  bring  it  up  again;  and  God  will  not  be  so 
mean  as  that.     God's  memory  is  mighty  enough  to  hold  all  the  events  of  the  ages. 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  lylFK. 


529 


but  there  is  one  thing  that  is  sure  to  slip  His  memory,  one  thing  He  is  sure  to  forget, 
and  that  is  pardoned  transgression. 

But  let  not  the  reader  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  this  doctrine  of  the 
circle  stops  with  this  life;  it  rolls  on  through  heaven.  You  might  quote  in 
opposition  to  me  what  Saint  John  saj-s  about  the  city  of  heaven.  He  saj-s  it 
"  lieth  four  square."  That  does  seem  to  militate  against  this  idea,  but  you  know 
there  is  many  a  square  house  that  has  a  family  circle  facing  each  other  and  in  a 
circle  moving,  and  this  is  so  in  regard  to  heaven.  Saint  John  says:  "I  heard 
the  voice  of  man}-  angels  round  about  the  throne  and  the  beasts  and  the  elders. ' ' 
And  again  he  says:  "  There  was  a  rainbow  round  about  the  throne."  The  two 
former  instances  a  circle;  the  last  either  a  circle  or  a  semi-circle.  The  seats  facing 
each  other,  the  angels  facing  each  other,  the  men  facing  each  other.  The  Romans 
had  an  amphitheatre  where  men  met  in  peaceful  rivalry  to  win  earthly  glory,  but 
heaven  has  an  amphitheatre  of  perpetual  glory  in  which  there  is  no  rivalr>\ 
Circumference  of  patriarch  and  prophet  and  apostle.  Circumference  of  Scotch 
covenanters  and  Theban  legion  and  Albigenses.  Circumference  of  the  good  of  all 
ages.     Periphery'  of  splendor  unimagined  and  indescribable. 

But  every  circumference  must  have  a  centre,  and  what  is  the  centre  of  this 
heavenly  circumference  ?  Christ.  His  all  the  glor}',  His  all  the  praise,  His  all 
the  crowns.  All  heaven  wreathed  into  a  garland  round  about  Him.  Take  off 
the  imperial  sandal  from  His  foot,  and  behold  the  scar  of  the  spike.  Lift  the 
coronet  of  dominion  from  His  brow,  and  see  where  the  lacerations  of  the  briars. 
Come  closer,  all  heaven.  Narrow  the  circle  around  His  great  heart.  O  Christ, 
the  Saviour.  O  Christ,  the  man  !  O  Christ,  the  God  !  Keep  Thy  throne  for- 
ever, seated  on  the  circle  of  the  earth,  seated  on  the  circle  of  the  heaven  ! 

On  Christ,  the  soHd  rock,  I  stand; 
All  other  ground  is  shifting  sand. 


34 


THE  NEED  OF  AN  AIM,    FORTIFIED   BY  AMBITION. 

'^ 

SAIAH  gives  a  description  of  the  idolatry  and  worldliness  of  people 
in  his  time,  and  of  a  very  prevalent  style  of  diet  in  our  time. 
j^^  The  world  spreads  a  great  feast  and  invites  the  race  to  sit 
at  it.  Platters  are  heaped  up.  Chalices  are  full.  Gar- 
lands wreathe  the  wall.  The  guest  sits  down  amid  out- 
bursts of  hilarity.  They  take  the  fruit  and  it  turns  into 
ashes.  They  uplift  the  tankards  and  their  contents  prove 
to  be  gall.  They  touch  the  garlands  and  they  scatter  into 
dust.  I  do  not  know  any  passage  of  Scripture  which  so 
apothegm atically  sets  forth  the  unsatisfactory  nature  Of  this 
world  for  eye,  and  tongue,  and  lip,  and  heart  as  this  particular  passage,  describing 
the  votary  of  the  world,  when  it  says:   "  He  feedeth  on  a.shes." 

I  shall  not  take  the  estimate  by  those  whose  life  has  been  a  failure.  A.  man 
may  despise  the  world  simply  because  he  cannot  win  it.  Having  failed,  in  his 
chagrin  he  may  decry  that  which  he  would  like  to  have  had  as  his  bride.  I  shall, 
therefore,  take  only  the  testimony  of  those  who  have  been  magnificently  success- 
ful. In  the  first  place,  I  shall  ask  the  kings  of  the  earth  to  stand  up  and  give 
testimony,  telling  of  the  long  story  of  sleepless  nights,  and  poisoned  cups,  and 
threatened  invasion,  and  dreaded  rebellion.  Ask  the  Georges,  ask  the  Henr>'S, 
ask  the  Marys,  ask  the  L,ouises,  ask  the  Catharines,  ask  the  Lady  Jane  Greys, 
whether  they  found  the  throne  a  safe  seat,  and  the  crown  a  pleasant  covering. 
Ask  the  French  guillotine  in  Madame  Taussaud's  Museum  about  the  queenly 
necks  it  has  dissevered.  Ask  the  Tower  of  London  and  its  headsman's  block. 
Ask  the  Tuilleries,  and  Henry  VIII.,  and  Cardinal  Wolsey  to  rise  out  of  the 
dust,  and  say  what  they  think  of  worldly  honors.  Ghastly  with  the  first  and  the 
second  death,  they  rise  up  with  eyeless  sockets  and  grinning  skeletons,  and  stagger 
forth  unable  at  first  to  speak  at  all,  but  afterward  hoarsely  whispering:   "  Ashes  ! 

Ashes!" 

THE  VANITY  OF  RICHES. 

I  call  up  also  a  group  of  commercial  adepts  to  give  testimony;  and  here 
again,  those  who  have  been  onlj'  moderately  successful  may  not  testifs'.     All  the 

(530) 


A   FAITHFUL   SERVANT. 


532  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I^IFE. 

witnesses  must  be  millionaires.  What  a  grand  thing  it  must  be  to  own  a  railroad, 
to  control  a  bank,  to  possess  all  the  houses  on  one  street,  to  have  vast  investments 
tumbling  in  upon  you  day  after  day,  whether  you  work  or  not.  No;  no.  William 
B.  Astor,  a  few  days  before  his  death,  sits  in  his  office  in  New  York,  grieving 
almost  until  he  is  sick,  because  rents  have  gone  down.  A.  T.  Stewart  finds  his 
last  days  full  of  foreboding  and  doubt.  When  a  Christian  man  proposes  to  talk 
to  him  about  the  matters  of  his  soul,  he  cries:  "  Go  away  from  me  !  Go  away 
from  me;"  not  satisfied  until  the  man  has  got  outside  the  door.  Come  up,  ye 
millionaires,  from  various  cemeteries  and  graveyards,  and  tell  us  now  what  you 
think  of  banks,  and  mills,  and  factories,  and  counting-houses,  and  marble  palaces, 
and  presidential  banquets.  They  stagger  forth  and  lean  against  the  cold  slab  of 
the  tomb,  mouthing  with  toothless  gums  and  gesticulating  with  fleshless  hands 
and  shivering  with  the  chill  of  sepulchral  dampness,  while  they  cry  out:  "Ashes  !" 
I  must  call  up  now,  also,  a  group  of  sinful  pleasurists,  and  here  again  I  will 
not  take  the  testimony  of  those  who  had  the  more  ordinary  gratifications  of  life. 
Their  pleasures  are  pyramidal.  They  bloomed  paradisaically.  If  they  drank 
wine,  it  must  be  the  best  that  was  ever  pressed  from  the  vineyards  of  Hockheimer. 
If  they  listened  to  music,  it  must  be  costliest  opera,  with  renowned  prima  donna. 
If  they  sinned,  they  chased  polished  uncleannesses  and  graceful  despair  and  glit- 
tering damnation.  Stand  up,  Alcibiades,  and  Aaron  Burr,  and  I^ord  Bj-ron,  and 
Queen  Elizabeth — what  think  you  now  of  midnight  revel,  and  sinful  carnival,  and 
damask  curtained  abomination  ?  Answer  !  The  color  goes  out  of  the  cheek,  the 
dregs  serpent-twisted  in  the  bottom  of  the  wine  cup,  the  bright  lights  quenched 
in  blackness  of  darkness,  they  jingle  together  the  broken  glasses,  and  rend  the 
faded  silks,  and  shut  the  door  of  the  deserted  banqueting-hall,   while  they  cry: 

"A  wasted  life." 

A  WASTED   LIFE.. 

There  are  a  great  many  who  try  to  feed  their  soul  on  infidelity  mixed  with 
truth.  They  say  the  Bible  has  good  things  in  it,  but  it  is  not  inspired.  They  say 
Christ  was  a  good  man,  but  He  was  not  inspired,  and  their  religion  is  made  up 
of  ten  degrees  of  humanitarianism,  and  ten  degrees  of  transcendentalism,  and  ten 
degrees  of  egotism,  with  one  degree  of  gospel  truth,  and  on  a  poor,  miserable  cud 
they  make  their  immortal  soul  chew,  while  the  meadows  of  God's  word  are  green 
and  luxuriant  with  well-watered  pastures.  Did  you  ever  see  a  happy  infidel  ? 
Did  you  ever  meet  a  placid  skeptic  ?  Did  you  ever  find  a  contented  atheist  ? 
Not  one.  From  the  days  of  Gibbon  and  Voltaire  down,  not  one.  They  quarrel 
about  God.  They  quarrel  about  the  Bible.  They  quarrel  about  each  other. 
They  quarrel  with  themselves.  They  take  all  the  divine  teachings  and  gather 
them  together,  and  under  them  they  put  the  fires  of  their  own  wit,  and  scorn,  and 
sarcasm,  and  then  they  dance  in  the  light  of  that  blaze,  and  they  scratch  amid 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  UFE.  533 

the  rubbish  for  something  with  which  to  help  them  in  the  days  of  trouble,  and 
something  to  comfort  them  in  the  days  of  death,  finding  for  their  distraught  and 
destroyed  souls,  nothing.  Voltaire  declared:  "  This  globe  seems  to  me  more  like 
a  collection  of  carcasses  than  of  men.  I  wish  I  had  never  been  born."  Hume 
says:  "  I  am  like  a  man  who  has  run  on  rocks  and  quicksands,  and  yet  I  contem- 
plate putting  out  on  the  sea  in  the  same  leaky  and  weather-beaten  craft." 
Chesterfield  says:  ' '  I  have  been  behind  the  scenes,  and  I  have  noticed  the  clumsy 
pulleys  and  the  dirty  ropes  by  which  all  the  scene  is  managed,  and  I  have  seen 
and  smelt  the  tallow  candles  which  throw  the  illumination  on  the  stage,  and  I  am 
tired  and  sick. "  Get  up,  then,  Francis  Newport,  and  Hume,  and  Voltaire,  and 
Tom  Paine,  and  all  the  infidels  who  have  passed  out  of  this  world  into  the  eternal 
world — get  up  now  and  tell  what  you  think  of  all  your  grandiloquent  derision  at  our 
holy  religion.  What  do  you  think  now  of  all  5^our  sarcasm  at  holy  things  ?  They 
come  shrieking  up  from  the  lost  world  to  the  graveyards  where  their  bodies  were  en- 
tombed, and  point  down  to  the  white  dust  of  dissolution,  and  cry:  ' '  A  wasted  life." 

Oh,  what  a  mistake  for  an  immortal  soul.  What  is  that  unrest  that  sometimes 
comes  across  3'ou?  Why  is  it  that,  surrounded  by  friends,  and  even  the  luxuries 
of  life,  you  wish  you  were  somewhere  else,  or  had  something  you  have  not  yet 
gained  ?  The  world  calls  it  ambition.  The  physicians  call  it  nervousness.  Your 
friends  call  it  the  fidgets.  I  call  it  hunger — deep,  grinding,  unappeasable  hunger. 
It  starts  with  us  when  we  are  born,  and  goes  on  with  us  until  the  Lord  God  Him- 
self appeases  it.  It  is  seeking  and  delving,  and  striving,  and  planning  to  get  some- 
thing we  cannot  get.  Wealth  says:  "  It  is  not  in  me."  Science  says:  "  It  is  not 
in  me."  Worldly  applause  says:  "It  is  not  in  me."  Sinful  indulgence  says: 
"  It  is  not  in  me."  Where  then  is  it?  On  the  banks  of  what  stream  ?  Slumber- 
ing in  what  grotto  ?  Marching  in  what  contest  ?  Expiring  on  what  pillow  ?  Tell 
me,  for  this  winged  and  immortal  spirit,  is  there  nothing  ? 

In  communion  with  God,  and  everlasting  trust  of  Him,  is  complete  satisfac- 
tion. Solomon  described  it  when  he  compared  it  to  cedar  houses,  and  golden 
chairs,  and  bounding  reindeer,  and  daybreak,  and  imperial  couch;  to  saffron,  to 
calamus,  to  white  teeth,  and  hands  heavy  with  gold  rings,  and  towers  of  ivory  and 
ornamental  figures;  but  Christ  calls  it  bread  !  O  famished,  yet  immortal  soul, 
why  not  come  and  get  it?  Until  our  sins  are  pardoned,  there  is  no  rest.  We 
know  not  at  what  moment  the  hounds  may  bay  at  us.  We  are  in  a  castle  and 
know  not  what  hour  it  may  be  besieged;  but  when  the  soothing  voice  of  Christ 
comes  across  our  perturbation,  it  is  hushed  forever. 

HELP  COMETH   NOT   FROM  THIS   WORLD. 

A  merchant  in  Antwerp  loaned  Charles  V.  a  vast  sum  of  money,  taking  for  it 
a  bond.     One  day  this  Antwerp  merchant  invited  Charles  V.  to  dine  with  him, 


534 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


and  while  they  were  seated  at  the  table,  in  the  presence  of  the  guests,  the  merchant 
had  a  lire  built  on  a  platter  in  the  centre  of  the  table.  Then  he  took  the  bond 
which  the  king  had  given  him  for  the  vast  sum  of  money,  and  held  it  in  the  blaze 

until  it  was 
consumed, 
and     the 
king     con- 
gratulated 
himself, 
and  all  the 
guests  con- 
gratulated 
the    king. 
There   was 
gone  at  last 
the    final 
evidence  of 
his  indebt- 
edness.     Mortgaged  to  God,  we  owe  a  debt  we  can 
never  pay;  but  God  invites  us  to  the  gospel  feast, 
and  in   the  fires  of  crucifixion  agony  He  puts  the 
last  record  of  our  indebtedness,  and  it  is  consumed 
forever.     It  was  so  in  the  case  of  the  dying  thief 
expiring  in  dark  despair,  with  the  judgment  to  come 
staring  him  in  the  face,  and  the  terrors  of  hell  lay- 
ing hold  of  his  soul.      He  had  faith  in  the  Crucified 
One,   and   his  faith  won  for  him  an  immediate  en- 
trance into  Paradise. 

■  Oh,  to  have  all  the  sins  of  our  past  forgiven, 
and  to  have  all  possible  securit}'  for  the  future— is 
not  that  enough  to  make  a  man  happy  ?  What 
makes  that  old  Christian  so  placid  ?  Most  of  his 
family  lie  in  the  village  cemetery.  His  health  is 
undermined.  His  cough  will  not  let  him  sleep  at 
night.  From  the  day  he  came  to  town  and  he  was  a 
clerk,  until  this  the  day  of  his  old  age,  it  has  been 
a  hard  fight  for  bread.  Yet  how  happy  he  looks. 
Why  ?  It  is  because  he  feels  that  the  same  God  who  watched  him  when  he  lay  in 
his  mother's  arms  is  watching  him  in  the  time  of  old  age,  and  unto  God  he  has 
committed  all  his  dead,  expecting  after  a  while  to  see  them  again.      He  has  no 


"^"p^^ 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I.IFE.  535 

anxiety  whether  he  go  this  summer  or  next  summer — whether  he  be  earned  out 
through  the  snowbanks  or  through  the  daisies.  lyike  a  faithful  watchdog  facing 
the  cutting  winds  and  snows  of  winter,  as  he  stands  beside  a  lost  and  freezing 
child,  calling  with  the  voice  of  pity  for  help,  but  will  not  abandon  his  charge. 
So  waits  honored  old  age,  with  face  bared  to  the  storms  of  this  earth,  faithful 
to  his  Creator,  and  sounding  the  watch-cry  for  lost  sinners.  Fifty  years  ago  he 
learned  that  all  this  world  could  give  was  ashes,  and  he  reached  up  and  took  the 
fruits  of  eternal  life.  You  see  his  face  is  very  white  now.  The  crimson  currents 
of  life  seem  to  have  departed  from  it;  but  under  that  extreme  whiteness  of  the  old 
man's  face  is  the  flash  of  the  daybreak. 

There  is  only  one  word  in  all  our  language  that  can  describe  his  feelings,  and 
that  is  the  word  that  slipped  off  the  angel's  harp  above  Bethlehem — peace  !  And 
so  there  are  hundreds  of  souls  who  have  felt  this  Almighty  comfort.  Their 
reputation  was  pursued;  their  health  shattered;  their  home  was  almost  if  not  quite 
broken  up;  their  fortune  gone.  Why  do  they  not  sit  down  and  give  it  up.  Ah, 
they  have  no  disposition  to  do  that.  They  are  saying  while  I  speak:  "It  is  my 
Father  that  mixes  this  bitter  cup,  and  I  will  cheerfully  drink  it.  Everything  will 
be  explained  after  a  while.  I  shall  not  always  be  under  the  harrow.  There  is 
something  that  makes  me  think  I  am  almost  home.  God  will  yet  wipe  away  all 
tears  from  my  eyes."  So  say  these  bereft  parents.  So  say  these  motherless 
children.     So  say  a  great  many  others. 

THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Now,  am  I  not  right  in  trying  to  persuade  all  to  give  up  ashes,  and  take 
bread,  to  give  up  the  unsatisfactory  things  of  this  world,  and  take  the  glorious 
things  of  God  and  eternity?  Why,  if  you  kept  this  world  as  long  as  it  lasts,  you 
would  have,  after  a  while,  to  give  it  up.  There  will  be  a  great  fire  breaking  out 
from  the  sides  of  the  hills;  there  will  be  falling  flame  and  ascending  flame,  and  in 
it  the. earth  will  be  whelmed.  Fires  burning  from  within,  out;  fires  burning  from 
above,  down;  this  earth  will  be  a  furnace,  and  then  it  will  be  a  living  coal,  and 
then  it  will  be  an  expiring  ember,  and  thick  clouds  of  smoke  will  lessen  and  lessen 
until  there  will  be  only  a  faint  vapor  curling  up  from  the  ruins,  and  then  the  very 
last  spark  of  the  earth  will  go  out.  And  I  see  two  angels  meeting  each  other  over 
the  gray  pile,  and  as  one  flits  past  it,  he  cries:  "Ashes!"  and  the  other,  as  he 
sweeps  down  the  immensity,  will  respond:  "  Ashes  !"  while  all  the  infinite  space 
will  echo  and  re-echo:  "Ashes!  Ashes!  Ashes!"  God  forbid  that  we  should 
choo.se  such  a  mean  portion . 

My  fear  is,  not  that  you  will  not  see  the  superiority  of  Christ  to  this  world, 
but  my  fear  is,  that  through  some  dreadful  infatuation,  you  will  relegate  to  the 
future  that  which  God  and  angels,  and  churches  militant  and  triumphant  declare 


536 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 


that  you  ought  to  do  now.  I  do  not  say  that  you  will  go  out  of  this  world  by  the 
stroke  of  a  horse's  hoof,  or  that  you  wall  fall  through  a  hatchway,  or  that  a  plank 
may  slip  from  an  insecure  scaffolding  and  dash  your  life  out,  or  that  a  bolt  may 
fall  on  you  from  an  August  thunder-storm;  but  I  do  say  that,  in  the  vast  majority 
of  cases,  your  departure  from  the  world  will  be  wonderfully  quick;  and  I  want  you 
to  start  on  the  right  road  before  that  crisis  arrives. 

A  Spaniard,  in  a  burst  of  temper,  slew  a  Moor.  Then  the  Spaniard  leaped 
over  a  high  wall  and  met  a  gardener,  and  told  him  the  whole  storj^;  and  the  gar- 
dener said:  "  I  will  make  a  pledge  of  confidence  with  you.  Eat  this  peach  and 
that  wull  be  a  pledge  that  I  will  be  3'our  protector  to  the  last."  But,  oh,  the  .sor- 
row and  surprise  of  the  gardener  when  he  found  out  that  it  was  his  own  son  that 
had  been  slain  !  Then  he  came  to  the  Spaniard  and  said  to  him:  "You  were 
cruel,  you  ought  to  die,  you  slew  my  .son,  and  yet  I  took  a  pledge  with  you,  and 
I  must  keep  my  promise;"  and  so  he  took  the  Spaniard  to  the  stables  and  brought 
out  the  swiftest  horse.  The  Spaniard  sprang  upon  it  and  put  many  miles  between 
him  and  the  scene  of  crime,  and  perfect  escape  was  effected. 

We  have,  by  our  sins,  slain  the  Son  of  God.  Is  there  any  possibility  of  our 
rescue  ?  Oh  !  yes.  God  the  Father  says  to  us:  ' '  You  had  no  business,  by  your 
sin,  to  slay  My  Son,  Jesus;  you  ought  to  die,  but  I  have  promised  you  deliver- 
ance. I  have  made  you  the  promise  of  eternal  life,  and  you  shall  have  it. 
Escape  now  for  your  life. "  And  now  I  act  merely  as  the  I^ord's  groom,  and  I 
bring  you  out  to  the  King's  stables,  and  I  tell  you  to  be  quick  and  mount,  and 
away.  In  this  plain  you  perish,  but  hou.sed  in  God  you  live.  O  you  pursued 
and  almost  overtaken  one,  put  on  more  speed.  Fly  !  Fly  !  lest  the  black  horse 
outrun  the  white  horse,  and  the  battle-axe  shiver  the  helmet  and  crash  down 
through  the  insufficient  mail.  In  this  tremendous  exigency  of  your  immortal 
spirit  beware,  lest  you  prefer  ashes  to  bread. 


•ttx^U  ®l7m03SJ^ 


TRIFLING  INCIDENTS  PRODUCE  MIGHTY  RESULTS,    MAKE 
THE  HEROES    AND   HEROINES  OF   EARTH. 

Damascus  is  a  city  of  white  and  glistening  architec- 
ture,   sometimes    called    the    "eye    of   the    East;" 
sometimes  called  "  a  pearl  surrounded  by  emeralds;" 
at  one  time  distinguished  by  swords   of  the   best 
material  called  Damascus  blades,  and  upholstery  of 
richest  fabrics  called  damasks.     A  horseman  by  the 
name  of  Saul,   riding    toward   this   city,    had  been 
thrown  from  his  saddle.     The  horse  had  dropped  under  a  flash  from 
the  sky,  which  at  the  same  time  was  so  bright  it  blinded  the  rider  for 
many  daj^s,  and,  I  think,  so  permanently  injured  his  ej-esight  that  this 
defect  of  vision  became  the  thorn  in  the  flesh  he  afterwards  speaks  of. 
He  started  for  Damascus  to  butcher  Christians,  but  after  that  hard  fall 
from  his  horse  he  was  a  changed  man  and  preached  Christ  in  Damas- 
cus till  the  city  was  shaken  to  its  foundations. 

The  ma)^or  gives  authority  for  his  arrest,  and  the  popular  cry  is: 
"Kill  him  !  Kill  him  !" 
The  city  is  surrounded  by  a  high  wall, -and  the  gates  are  watched  by  the 
police  lest  the  Cilician  preacher  escape.  Many  of  the  houses  are  built  on  the 
\\all,  and  their  balconies  project  clear  over  and  hover  above  the  gardens  outside. 
It  was  customary  to  lower  baskets  out  of  these  balconies,  and  pull  up  fruits  and 
flowers  from  the  gardens.  To  this  day  visitors  at  the  monastery  of  Mount  Sinai 
are  lifted  and  let  down  in  baskets.  Detectives  prowl  around  from  house  to  house 
looking  for  Paul,  but  his  friends  hid  him,  now  in  one  place,  now  in  another.  He 
is  no  coward,  as  fifty  incidents  in  his  life  demonstrate.  But  he  feels  his  work  is 
not  done  yet,  and  so  he  evades  assassination. 

"  Is  that  preacher  here?"   the  foaming  mob  shout  at  one  house-door.      "Is 
that  fanatic  here?"  the  police  shout  at  another  liouse-door= 

EVADING  THE    MOB. 

vSometimes  on  the  street  incognito  he  passes  through  a  crowd  of  clinched  fists 
and    sometimes    he  secrets   himself  on   the   house-top.       At    last   the    infuriated 

^.537) 


538  THE  PATHWAY  OF  I,IFE. 

populace  get  on  sure  track  of  him.  They  have  positive  evidence  that  he  is  in 
the  house  of  one  of  the  Christians,  the  balcony  of  whose  home  reaches  over 
the  wall. 

' '  Here  he  is  !     Here  he  is  !  " 

The  vociferation,  and  blaspheni}',  and  howling  of  the  pursuers  are  at  the 
front  door.     They  break  in. 

"  Fetch  out  that  gospelizer  and  let  us  hang  his  head  on  the  cit}'  gate. 
Where  is  he?" 

The  emergency  was  terrible.  Providentially  there  was  a  good  stout  basket 
in  the  house.  Paul's  friends  fasten  a  rope  to  the  basket.  Paul  steps  into  it. 
The  basket  is  lifted  to  the  edge  of  the  balcony  on  the  wall,  and  then,  while  Paul 
holds  on  to  the  rope  with  both  hands,  his  friends  lower  away  carefully  and  cau- 
tiously, slowly  but  surel}^  further  down  and  further  down,  until  the  basket  strikes 
the  earth  and  the  apostle  steps  out,  and  afoot  and  alone  starts  on  that  famous 
missionary  tour,  the  story  of  which  has  astonished  earth  and  heaven.  Appropriate 
entry  in  Paul's  diary  of  travels:  "  Through  a  window  in  a  basket  was  I  let  down 
by  the  wall." 

Did  ever  ship  of  many  thousand  tons,  crossing  the  sea,  have  such  an 
important  passenger  as  had  once  a  boat  of  leaves;  from  taffrail  to  stern  only  three 
or  four  feet,  the  vessel  made  waterproof  by  a  coat  of  bitumen,  and  floating  on  the 
Nile  with  the  infant  law-giver  of  the  Jews  on  board  ?  What  if  some  crocodile 
should  crunch  it !  What  if  some  of  the  cattle  wading  in  for  a  drink  should  sink 
it !  Vessels  of  war  sometimes  carry  forty  guns,  looking  through  the  port-holes, 
ready  to  open  battle.  But  that  tiny  craft  on  the  Nile  seems  to  be  armed  with  all 
the  guns  of  thunder  that  bombarded  Sinai  at  the  law-giving.  On  how  fragile  a 
craft  sailed  how  much  of  historical  importance  ! 

AN    INCIDENT    IN  JOHN   WESLEY'S    LIFE. 

The  parsonage  at  Epworth,  England,  is  on  fire  in  the  night,  and  the  father 
rushed  through  the  hallway  for  the  rescue  of  his  children.  Seven  children  are 
out  and  safe  on  the  ground,  but  one  remains  in  the  consuming  building.  That 
one  wakes,  and  finding  his  bed  on  fire  and  the  building  crumbling,  comes  to  the 
window,  and  two  peasants  make  a  ladder  of  their  bodies,  one  peasant  standing  on 
the  shoulder  of  the  other,  and  down  the  human  ladder  the  boy  descends — ^John 
Wesley. 

If  you  would  know  how  much  depended  on  that  ladder  of  peasants  ask  the 
millions  of  Methodists  on  both  sides  of  the  sea.  Ask  their  mission  stations  all 
round  the  world.  Ask  their  hundreds  of  thousands  already  ascended  to  join 
their  founder,  who  would  have  perished  but  for  the  living  stairs  of  peasants* 
shoulders. 


A  gUIVER  FULL  OF  CHILDREN. 


(539) 


540  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

An  English  ship  stopped  at  Pitcairn  Island,  and  right  in  the  midst  of  sur- 
rounding cannibalism  and  squalor  the  passengers  discovered  a  Christian  colony  of 
churches  and  schools  and  beautiful  homes,  and  the  highest  style  of  religion  and 
civilization.  For  fifty  years  no  missionary  and  no  Christian  influence  had  landed 
there.  Why  this  oasis  of  light  amid  a  desert  of  heathendom  ?  Sixty  years  before 
a  ship  had  met  disaster,  and  one  of  her  sailors,  unable  to  save  anything  else, 
went  to  his  trunk  and  took  out  a  Bible  which  his  mother  had  placed  there,  and 
swam  ashore,  the  Bible  held  in  his  teeth.  The  book  was  read  on  all  sides  until 
the  rough  and  vicious  population  were  evangelized,  and  a  church  was  started,  and 
an  enlightened  commonwealth  established,  aud  the  world's  history  has  no  more 
brilliant  page  than  that  which  tells  of  the  transformation  of  a  nation  by  one  book. 
It  did  not  seem  of  much  importance  whether  the  sailor  continued  to  hold  the  book 
in  his  teeth  or  let  it  fall  in  the  breakers,  but  upon  what  small  circumstance 
depended  what  mighty  results  ! 

Practical  inference:  There  are  no  insignificances  in  our  lives.  The  most 
minute  thing  is  part  of  a  magnitude.  Infinity  is  made  up  of  infinitesimals. 
Great  things  an  aggregation  of  small  things.  Bethlehem  manger  pulling  on  a 
star  in  the  eastern  sky.  One  book  in  a  drenched  sailor's  mouth  the  evangeliza- 
tion of  a  multitude.  One  boat  of  papyrus  on  the  Nile  freighted  with  events  for 
all  ages.  The  fate  of  Christendom  in  a  basket  let  down  from  a  window  on  the 
wall.  The  song  of  a  Miriam  rejoicing  over  the  triumph  of  the  Lord  that  echoes 
down  the  ages. 

What  you  do  do  well.  If  you  make  a  rope  make  it  strong  and  true,  for  you 
know  not  how  much  may  depend  on  your  workmanship.  If  you  fashion  a  boat, 
let  it  be  waterproof,  for  you  know  not  who  may  sail  in  it.  If  you  put  a  Bible  in 
the  trunk  of  your  boy  as  he  goes  from  home,  let  it  be  placed  there  with  your 
prayers,  for  it  may  have  a  mission  as  far-reaching  as  the  book  which  the  sailor 
carried  in  his  teeth  to  the  Pitcairn  beach.  The  plainest  man's  life  is  an  island 
between  two  eternities — eternity  past  rippling  against  his  shoulders,  eternity  to 
come  touching  his  brow.  The  casual,  the  accidental,  that  which  merely  happened 
so,  are  parts  of  a  great  plan,  and  the  rope  that  lets  the  fugitive  apostle  from  the 
Damascus  wall  is  the  cable  that  holds  to  its  mooring  the  ship  of  the  Church  in  the 
northeast  storm  of  the  centuries. 

IN   A   STORM   AT  SEA. 

Once  for  thirty-six  hours  we  expected  every  moment  to  go  to  the  bottom  of 
the  ocean.  The  waves  struck  through  the  skylights  and  rushed  down  into  the 
hold  of  the  ship  and  hissed  against  the  boilers.  It  was  an  awful  time,  but  by  the 
blessing  of  God  and  the  faithfulness  of  the  men  in  charge  we  came  out  of  the 
cyclone   and  we   arrived   at  home.     Each   one  before  leaving  the  ship  thanked 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE.  541 

Captain  Andrews.  I  do  not  think  there  was  a  man  or  woman  that  went  off  that 
ship  without  thanking  Captain  Andrews,  and  when  years  after  I  heard  of  his 
death  I  was  impelled  to  write  a  letter  of  condolence  to  his  family  in  Eiverpool. 
Everybody  recognized  the  goodness,  the  courage,  the  kindness  of  Captain 
Andrews,  but  it  occurs  to  me  now  that  we  never  thanked  the  engineer.  He  stood 
away  down  in  the  darkness  amid  the  hissing  furnaces  doing  his  whole  duty. 
Nobody  thanked  the  engineer,  but  God  recognized  his  heroism  and  his  continu- 
ance and  his  fidelity,  and  there  will  be  just  as  high  reward  for  the  engineer,  who 
worked  out  of  sight,  as  for  the  captain  who  stood  on  the  bridge  of  the  ship  in  the 
midst  of  the  howling  tempest. 

There  are  said  to  be  about  69,000  ministers  of  religion  in  this  country.  About 
50,000  I  warrant  came  from  early  homes  which  had  to  struggle  for  the  necessaries 
of  life.  The  sons  of  rich  bankers  and  merchants  generall)^  become  bankers  and 
merchants.  The  most  of  those  who  become  ministers  are  the  sons  of  those  who 
had  terrific  struggle  to  get  their  every -day  bread.  The  collegiate  and  theological 
education  of  that  son  took  every  luxury  from  the  parental  table  for  eight  years. 
The  other  children  were  more  scantily  apparelled.  The  son  at  college  every  little 
while  got  a  bundle  from  home.  In  it  were  the  socks  that  mother  had  knit,  sitting 
up  late  at  night,  her  sight  not  as  good  as  once  it  was.  And  there  also  were  some 
delicacies  from  the  sister's  hand  for  the  voracious  appetite  of  a  hungry  student. 
The  father  swung  the  heavy  cradle  through  the  wheat,  the  sweat  rolling  fron^  his 
chin  bedewing  every  step  of  the  way,  and  then  sitting  down  under  the  cherry  tree 
at  noon  thinking  to  himself:  "  I  am  fearfully  tired,  but  it  will  pay  if  I  can  once 
see  that  boy  through  college,  and  if  I  can  know  that  he  will  be  preaching  the 
gospel  after  I  am  dead."     Another  John  in  the  desert  and  wilderness  of  sin. 

The  younger  children  want  to  know  why  they  can't  have  this  and  that,  as 

others  do,  and  the  mother  says:    "Be  patient,   my  children,  until  your  brother 

graduates,    and  then  you  shall   have  more  luxuries,  but  we  must  see  that  boy 

through." 

SUCCESS  AT   LAST. 

The  years  go  by  and  the  son  has  been  ordained  and  is  preaching  the  glorious 
gospel,  and  a  great  revival  comes,  and  souls  by  scores  and  hundreds  accept  the 
gospel  from  the  lips  of  that  young  preacher,  and  father  and  mother,  quite  old  now, 
are  visiting  the  son  at  the  village  parsonage,  and  at  the  close  of  a  Sabbath  of 
mighty  blessing,  father  and  mother  retire  to  their  room,  the  son  lighting  the  way 
and  asking  them  if  he  can  do  anything  to  make  them  more  comfortable,  sa3-ing  if 
they  want  anything  in  the  night  just  to  knock  on  the  wall.  And  then,  all  alone, 
father  and  mother  talk  over  the  gracious  influences  of  the  day  and  say:  "  Well,  it 
was  worth  all  we  went  through  to  educate  that  bo5\  It  was  a  hard  pull,  but  we 
held  on  till  the  work  was  done.  The  world  ma)^  not  know  it,  but,  mother,  we 
held  the  rope,  didn't  we?" 


542  THE  PATHWAY  OF  LIFE. 

And  the  voice,  tremulous  with  joyful  emotion,  responded:  "Yes,  father,  we 
held  the  rope.  I  feel  my  work  is  done.  Now,  Eord,  lettest  thou  thy  servant 
depart  in  peace,  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  Thy  salvation." 

' '  Pshaw  ! ' '  says  the  father,  ' '  I  never  felt  so  much  like  living  in  my  life  as 
now.  I  want  to  see  what  that  fellow  is  going  to  do,  he  has  begun  so  well." 
Something  occurs  to  me  quite  personal.  I  was  the  youngest  of  a  large  family  of 
children.  My  parents  were  neither  rich  nor  poor;  four  of  the  sons  wanted  col- 
legiate education,  and  four  obtained  it,  but  not  without  great  home-struggle.  We 
never  heard  the  old  people  say  once  that  they  were  denying  themselves  to  effect 
this,  but  I  remember  now  that  my  parents  always  looked  tired.  I  think  they 
never  got  rested  till  they  lay  down  in  the  Somer\nlle  Cemetery.  Mother  would 
sit  down  in  the  evening  and  say:  "  Well,  I  don't  know  what  makes  me  feel  so 
tired. ' ' 

Father  would  fall  immediately  to  sleep,  seated  in  the  old  wood  rocking-chair, 

overcome  with  the  day's  fatigues.     One  of  the  four  brothers,  after  preaching  the 

gospel  for  about  fifty  years,  entered  upon  his  heavenly  rest.     Another  of  the  four 

is  now  on  the  other  side  the  earth,  a  missionary  of  the  cross.     Two  of  us  are  in 

this  land  in  the  holy  ministry,  and  I  think  all  of  us  are  willing  to  acknowledge 

our  obligation  to  the  old  folks  at  home.     About  twenty-one  years  ago  the  one,  and 

about  twenty-three  years  ago  the  other,  put  down  the  burdens  of  this  life,  but  thej^ 

still  hold  the  rope. 

NOTHING    INSIGNIFICANT. 

Henceforth  think  of  nothing  as  insignificant.  A  little  thing  may  decide  your 
all.  A  Cunarder  put  out  from  England  for  New  York.  It  was  well  equipped,  but 
in  putting  up  a  stove  in  the  pilot  box  a  nail  was  driven  too  near  the  compass.  You 
know  how  that  nail  would  affect  the  compass.  The  ship's  officer,  deceived  by  that 
distracted  compass,  put  the  ship  200  miles  off  her  right  course,  and  suddenly  the 
man  on  the  lookout  cried  :  ' '  Eand  ho  !  "  and  the  ship  was  halted  within  a  few 
yards  of  her  demolition  on  Nantucket  shoals.  A  six-penny  nail  came  near  wreck- 
ing a  Cunarder.     Small  ropes  hold  mighty  destinies. 

A  minister  seated  in  Boston  at  his  table,  lacking  a  word,  puts  his  hand 
behind  his  head  and  tilts  back  his  chair  to  think,  and  the  ceiling  falls  and  crushes 
the  table,  and  would  have  crushed  him.  A  minister  in  Jamaica  at  night,  by  the 
light  of  an  insect  called  the  candle  fly,  is  kept  from  stepping  over  a  precipice  100 
feet.  F.  W.  Robertson,  the  celebrated  English  clergyman,  said  that  he  entered 
the  ministry  from  a  train  of  circumstances  started  b)'  the  barking  of  a  dog.  Had 
the  wind  blown  one  way  on  a  certain  day,  the  Spanish  Inquisition  would  have 
been  established  in  England  ;  but  it  blew  the  other  way,  and  that  dropped  the 
accursed  institution,  with  75,000  tons  of  shipping,  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  or 
flung  the  splintered  logs  on  the  rocks. 


HOME   AT   LAST. 


(54- 


544 


THE  PATHWAY  OF  I^IFE. 


Nothing  unimportant  in  your  life  or  mine.  Three  naughts  placed  on  the 
right  side  of  the  figure  one  make  a  thousand,  and  six  naughts  on  the  right  side  of 
the  figure  one  a  million,  and  our  nothingness  placed  on  the  right  side  may  b*^ 
augmentation  illimitable.  All  the  ages  of  time  and  eternity  affected  by  the  basket 
let  down  from  a  Damascus  balcony. 

And  now,  dear  reader,  we  know  of  no  better  conclusion  to  this  volume  than 
the  prayer  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  when  he  says:  "  I  bow  my  knees  unto  the  Father 
of  our  L,ord  Jesus  Christ,  of  whom  the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  is  named, 
that  He  would  grant  you  according  to  the  riches  of  His  glory,  to  be  strengthened 
with  might  by  His  spirit  in  the  inner  man;  that  Christ  may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by 
faith;  that  ye,  being  rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  may  be  able  to  comprehend 
with  all  saints  what  is  the  breadth,  and  length,  and  depth,  and  height;  and  to 
know  the  love  of  Christ,  which  passeth  knowledge,  that  ye  might  be  filled  with 
all  the  fullness  of  God.  *  *  *  Unto  Him  be  glory  in  the  Church  by  Christ 
Jesus  throughout  all  ages,  world  without  end.     Amen." 


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